Thursday 1 December 2005

A francophone fridge?

Either I need a lesson in physics, or there's something seriously wrong with my fridge. A third alternative could be that God's trying to teach me something profound through the medium of my fridge (feel free to comment interpretations accordingly), but when he's spoken supremely in his Son, I think 'listening' to a fridge might count as drifting, to the writer to the Hebrews.

Firstly the freezer compartment didn't freeze. So I turned down the temperature.
Then, after a few weeks, the freezer compartment starting slowly freezing up until I couldn't open the door. Fine!
Then, after a good few weeks of this, all of a sudden it started melting. That was also fine with me, only inconvenience being water all over the food in the fridge.
Then I came back from a weekend away to find the top part of the *fridge* acting as a freezer... ie all the food was frozen solid.
Then just now, it stopped working altogether. Fuse? Check. Other appliances? Check.
Then 5 min later, it came back on! Hallelujah brothers, I have a resurrected fridge!

No go on - I'm not going to offer a deep significance. It's just there as one of those Strange Things in Life. One of my friends attributes it to the francophone nature of the fridge: she knew one in Grenoble which heated food. But as the fridge hasn't spoken to me I cannot yet accuse it of being francophone.

3 comments:

tonymyles said...

Congrats!

Anonymous said...

Freezer compartments of fridges are not really meant for *freezing* food - just for keeping it frozen for a while. What's the star rating on it? The fact that it melted suggested you have a Modern Self-Defrosting Fridge (most of them are these days). It's not supposed to dribble over the food, but then, you're not supposed to let it get that iced up. When you left it without opening the door for a few days, its iced-up state was just another indication that you had it turned down way too cold. When it stopped altogether, it was definitely a CRY FOR HELP. Now, get down on your knees before the poor thing and apologise for so ill-treating it, and turn the thermostat a leeetle warmer before it expires for ever. And also, buy it a fridge thermometer for Christmas. Keep it at the setting where the top of the fridge is about 5-9 degrees, and the bottom shelf 0-1. See? (what DO they teach them in school these days?)

étrangère said...

Thank you mama for that most practical interpretation of the silent cry of my poor beleaguered fridge.

It would explain everything except for what I confirmed today, which is that it turns itself off when I unplug an appliance (kettle, coffee machine, hotplates) from the socket above it. Which is not the fridge socket. Or it turns itself off without me doing this but simultaneously 2 of my sockets go too - without affecting the other sockets in the room which are all on the same circuit. And the fuses are still fine. It all started working again when I wiggled the plug that was currently in the socket above the fridge. (Which is not always the one plugged in when the fridge cuts.)

The freezer compartment doesn't have a star rating, though I was aware that it wasn't for freezing food: it didn't keep anything frozen though anyway. I sincerely doubt that it's anything modern or as logical as all that: it's French. However I will turn it down (I mean, up) as you suggest. I might also phone the landlady and suggest there's a fault with the electrics in my room. Thinking of it, it's possibly been since the electrician came that it's been playing up...

Now that was far too practical a blog comment mama, but I receive it with thankfulness and after all, it was ordained with a CSLewis quote ;-)