We are spending this Thanksgiving with family in Iowa, at our new house on the lake. We drove up Tuesday afternoon, once the kids were released from school, and it was cold, dark, and late when we pulled in. We unloaded our stuff and went straight to bed. Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early (also, I may have forgotten to turn off my weekday alarm) and set about getting our grocery shopping and other miscellaneous pre-Thanksgiving errands done.
I returned from a mid-afternoon supply run to find the household in a panic.
The basement refrigerator had suddenly stopped working. We were counting on its frosty coldness to hold all the Thanksgiving dishes we were prepping.
Reminiscent of that one time we tried to book a last-minute international flight like Wall Street stockbrokers, my husband, his cousin Steven, and Steven’s boyfriend were all on the phone, each calling a different appliance store to find out a) who is open at 3:30 pm the day before a holiday and b) who might be willing to deliver us a refrigerator.
After many calls they were able to find ONE place in a 50 mile radius that not only was open, but was actually willing to deliver us a refrigerator. Bonus points, it was just up the road from us.
The nice lady on the phone was not comfortable picking a refrigerator for us sight-unseen, so Chris, Steven, and Brayden hopped in the car to go find one that fits the bill (and the space between our cabinets and the wall).
Totally unrelated to the refrigerator debacle, my sister-in-law’s cat, Snowball, went missing about 10 days ago. They had asked around everywhere; the kids were devestated.
The three men walk into the appliance store and right there is a cat. This appliance store, for reference, is 25 miles north of my sister-in-law’s house.
You guys, you won’t believe this, but it was Snowball.
The lady at the appliance store actually lived not far from my sister-in-law, and had found the cat wandering around her property. However, the other cats she had were being mean to poor Snowball, so she’d taken him up to her shop for the day so he wouldn’t get picked on any more.
Which is why Snowball was at the appliance store.
Next to our house.
On the day before a holiday.
When we just happened to come in, unexpectedly needing to buy a refrigerator.
So, Snowball is rescued (kids are bawling with happiness, Snowball is loving the attention, it’s a Thanksgiving miracle) the refrigerator is paid for and the delivery guys are going to get a nice tip to bring it to the house.
The guys return to the house ONLY TO FIND THE REFRIGERATOR IS WORKING AGAIN.
I’m not sure how else you can read this except that our refrigerator took a crap solely so we could go find Snowball at the appliance store.
And now my sister-in-law’s family has her cat back and we have two refrigerators.
