Shouldn't you catch it?

Yesterday, our refrigerator started making a worrying hum, all the more worrying since Spiderman villain Hum Dinger was nowhere in the vicinity. And today, I opened it up and realized that despite the fact that I could hear the motor, I couldn't feel any cold air. Up in the freezer, none of our blue ice had frozen and things were steadily defrosting. Ack. Our refrigerator had stopped running.

Normally, this would be where renting would come in handy, but while I normally like our landlord, one of his drawbacks is that he doesn't provide a refrigerator. It's worth it because we're living in a very nice neighborhood for a lot less than you would expect, but our current refrigerator is the one that the previous tenants left behind. It's, er, not exactly a huge shock as to why. It's ancient, has a tiny freezer, is missing several shelves, and generally gives the air of an appliance ready to float down the River Styx at a moment's notice. And lo! It's gone on its final journey.

The problem with refrigerators is that it's one of the only appliances you can't live without for any amount of time. If the stove broke, we could use the microwave. If the washer or dryer broke, we could go to a laundromat and use the clothesline, or even use the bathtub. Heck, even if the furnace went out we could shiver in front of a space heater for a couple days. But nothing will refrigerate food except, well, a refrigerator. And as much as I hate to lose an entire refrigerator and freezer full of food (really hate, since I just made a trip to BJ's last week to fill the freezer), it's the breastmilk I'm producing that makes it vital to have refrigeration. And, of course, I've finally just reached a point where I've pulled ahead a bit of demand and have a bit of a surplus.

Sigh. When we started hearing the hum yesterday, we started responding to listings on Craigslist. But none of the leads have panned out, so I think tomorrow morning we're just going to have to suck it up and go to Sears, who is at least offering free delivery and will haul away the wretched husk of our old refrigerator. This wasn't what I wanted to spend money on right before Christmas, but we can more or less afford it. And I have to admit, I will look forward to a refrigerator that doesn't have an empty pizza box replacing one of the shelves.