A Miracle Between 4:00 And Midnight

Ever since FRIG II's icemaker went on the fritz at the beginning of November last year, I have been buying ice in bags from 10Box. You may recall this saga from back then. I'm sure I had several posts about it, because Farmer H was so frustrating in his response. Yes. I realize that must be quite a shock for you to hear, heh, heh. He basically just gave up, after repeated reminders from me, and said that he couldn't find a replacement icemaker to fit FRIG II. I call poppycock! How many different dimensions can there be in a side-by-side freezer? 

Anyhoo... Farmer H's solution was to just buy a new refrigerator/freezer. I was not keen on that idea. I don't like adjusting to new things, and I don't like shelling out $1000 randomly (or more!) to get a new refrigerator when everything works just fine except the part that makes ice. So I have been schlepping in those heavy bags of ice every few days. I would get the large bag, but that's too hard for me to carry. So the small one has to do. I put half in the bin, and the rest of the bag in the mini chest freezer in the laundry room until we need it.

A couple times, I told Farmer H to stop and bring home ice. He uses it too, if he has a Wild Turkey in the evenings. Otherwise, he doesn't care, because he always drinks Diet Mountain Dew out of the bottle. I am the one who likes my ice, putting it in my metal water bottle every day. Farmer H is not the best ice-bringer. I always wrap a coat around the bag on the way home, then bring it in, drop it on the cutting block to loosen the cubes apart, then put it in the mini chest freezer. Farmer H tosses it on the floor of SilverRedO, then brings it directly to the mini chest freezer, in one solid semi-melting block. So when I break it up for putting in the bin, I don't really get cubes, but more like assorted sizes of shards and crumbs.

Anyhoo... on Thursday afternoon, I was excited, because the bag I'd had stored in the mini chest freezer was the GOOD ICE. The little hollow cylinders, not the flat squares. When I had bought this bag, 10Box had just gotten a recent shipment. So I got a bag that had been near the top of the two big stacks in the outdoor freezer. That meant the hollow cylinders had not been melted by the pressure of being on the bottom. They retained their shape, and broke apart as actual little cylinders. Not crumbs or shards.

I happily poured half that bag of cylinders in the bin. That requires sliding out the whole bin, and setting it on the cutting block. It's pretty heavy lifting it back in, but nobody else is going to do it for me! I had chopped loose some of the remaining shards on the bottom of the bin, and saved two big ones for my soda. They don't fit in the top of my water bottle. I put that little lever back down. It's the one that senses too much ice in the bin, and stops the making of ice. Heh, heh! AS IF FRIG II was still making ice. The bin won't slide in and out unless that lever is clicked up and out of the way. When put back down, the lever rested on one of my large shards, but I knew it would click back down in a few minutes when I took out the shard. Not a big deal anyway. No action in there.

Next, I squeezed a lemon into my red Solo cup. Poured in my Diet Shasta Cola. Did you know that if a lemon seed gets through the squeezer, that carbonation brings it right to the surface, easy to be picked out with a spoon? You're welcome for that new knowledge. I've really been enjoying lemon juice in my soda for the past month or so. Maybe it's because of winter. Or that I got a good deal on a bag of lemons at 10Box.

The rest of my evening went as normal. Farmer H came home and did some fiddling with T-Hoe's tire. He was on his own for supper, warming up the noodles/chicken/peas/ mushrooms for himself, with a couple Hawaiian rolls. I had mine later. Farmer H watched Swamp People then went to bed. I shut down HIPPIE shortly after 11:30, and went to FRIG II to add some of those ice cylinders to my water bottle for overnight.

I reached into the bin and pulled out a few cylinders. As I was putting them in the water bottle, I saw A CRESCENT ICE CUBE in my hand.

WHAT IN THE NOT-HEAVEN???

I looked into the bin, and saw a couple more. AND the prongy section that spits out the completed ice cubes was moving! How did FRIG II start working "suddenly," on his own, FOUR MONTHS after breaking?

The next morning, I told Farmer H. He did not have the common decency to appear surprised. He looked in, and said, "It definitely made some ice."

"HOW does that happen, after four months, without us doing anything? You tried all that stuff that didn't work. And now it just starts again? Randomly?"

"HM. There could have been a clog in there that worked its way out."

Sure. After four months. Something is definitely weird around here. I don't know if FRIG II will continue making ice. With the made ice on top of those hollow cylinders of store-bought ice, the lever is up, signaling not to make any ice right now. I guess I'll find out tonight, when the level goes down and the lever goes back into place...