Descent into …. Habits:

How a family of 5 survived for 3 weeks with a mini fridge.


Part 2

Space Jam

So we shopped for a refrigerator. It only took one day to find the one we wanted. There is an amazingly limited selection of appliances in Lowe’s and Sears' inventories at any given time. The one thing we brought into the search that accelerated the process for us was that we would not be purchasing another Whirlpool—anything—ever again. Some day I will relate how our one-year-old Whirlpool oven conked out on us, but for now I will simply state that this is beginning to look a lot like a trend with their appliances. So, a new problem arose:

We chose the most popular one.

What does that mean, exactly? Basically, it means our delivery date was scheduled for 1 ½ weeks after the day of purchase. (OK, gulp… exhale… negotiate in vain… accept.) This brings us back to the mini fridge…

Two 12” x 12” shelves, about eight inches above and below each—had to remove one to fit gallon milk jugs inside. One 12” x 6” x 8” drawer. Freezer approximately 12” x 12” x 6”, with this ridiculous inch-high pullout tray thing underneath. Two little joke shelves in the door. There are five people in my family—three adults and two children. My family drinks a gallon of milk every two days, but I could only keep one gallon in the house at a time because of this thing. For the first time in our lives, we all had to be brutally honest about whether we seriously planned to eat our leftovers. Each night at dinner, the previous night’s leftovers were tossed out. I had to prepare each meal so mindfully—exactly five servings of each item, and if anyone wanted seconds, they could have whatever the baby only ate half of. All the “refrigerate after opening” condiments had to be thrown out. All the frozen food—except for a box of tempura shrimp and some tiny individually-packaged ice cream cups—had to go. I had to buy ice trays and make ice every few hours (can you say, "third world style?"). I was shopping almost every day. Logging my food journal was privately humiliating, because I didn’t have enough fresh food to eat properly for a day—any day. There were jugs of spring water all over the counter. And my two-year-old was constantly playing with what she naturally assumed was a toy refrigerator placed next to her chair for her personal amusement.

So, we learned how to eat. It took a few days, but we actually learned how to eat. And we learned how to shop, only for the necessities, and how to not waste them. It was a little like squeezing ourselves through this tiny, uncomfortable mini fridge chrysalis and emerging as conservative, mindful shopper/eaters with menu plans and purposeful appetites. We were even learning to be content with our daily bread (well, the bread didn’t really count, because we had plenty of that in the pantry, but we definitely learned to be satisfied without a backup loaf in the freezer).

As the days drew closer for the new refrigerator to be delivered, I began to think outside of the box. I downloaded a sketch of the inside, and began planning how to keep our groceries organized. Assigning shelves to certain meals, mapping out where each family member would keep his/her snacks, consciously deciding to only use one small space in the freezer for one week worth of meat. I was so excited, and my passion for our newly-awakening lifestyle was spreading to the children.

Three days before our new refrigerator was scheduled to be delivered, we got a telephone call from the customer service department. Remember how we chose the most popular model? The manufacturer could not keep up with the demand, and the earliest we could get delivery would be the following Saturday. Exactly 3 weeks from the day the old refrigerator broke. Ummm, could you tell that to my husband, please (while I run dramatically sobbing from the room)? Tribulation is such a lukewarm expression of what that telephone call put us through. If you’ve ever read Lord of the Flies, you can begin to imagine the breakdown of civilization in my home as we waited an extra eternity for relief.

Be sure to check back for Part 3: 

Cold as Ice, Willing to Sacrifice Our Love