Cold-Blooded: My War with my Minifridge

It started with a yogurt…it ended with betrayal

We’ve all been there; you notice your minifridge has frozen things that aren’t meant to be frozen. Your spinach is now a frosty disc. Your yogurt has icicles inside it. You suspect sabotage. Adjust the dial? No, no, no, now it doesn’t work. Meet in the middle, “medium cool,” the thing responds by cryogenically freezing your grapes as if preparing for a space mission.

Fridge: 1 - Humans: 0

You begin retaliating. Unplug it for a day… Somehow it comes back even colder than before. You wedge a coaster underneath a foot to make it wobble… It takes revenge by leaking mysterious fluid on the floor. You swear it’s making plans with the microwave at night. Now, I don’t speak appliance, but I know a coup when I see one. 

Fridge: 2 - Humans: 0.

You call maintenance, hoping that this could all be fixed by simply hiring a professional. He opens the door, sees the icicle-laced hummus, and whispers, “Not again…” He leaves in tears a couple of hours later.

Fridge: 5 - Humans: 0 (bonus points for making a grown man cry).

You were right about the microwave revolt! The next time you go to make Ramen, your microwave shorts your room. That’s never happened before. It clicks on with a beep; one smug beep from your microwave; it’s laughing at you. They’re coordinating, conspiring against you. I would call it mutiny, that is, if they weren’t a fridge and a microwave.

Fridge & Microwave: 6 - Humans: 0.

Then, when all hope seemed lost… There it is. A breakthrough, a chance, a prayer. You find a setting. A somewhat mysterious, faded setting right in the middle of the dial that you have never tried before. You set it. The fridge hums low, quiet… Respectfully? For two glorious, beautiful days your food is perfectly chilled, your yogurt is the perfect consistency, and your grapes are crunchy, not frozen. That’s it. Hope returns; you start trusting, believing in peace once again. Against all odds.

Fridge: 6 - Humans: 1.

But… Wait, something is growling at 4 a.m.? You look to the side of your room; a low, grinding noise is coming from the dreaded refrigerator. The food inside is that of slush and sorrow, the grapes are almost soggy? Even the water bottles have cracked open from over-freezing.

Fridge: 100 - Humans: 0.

You’ve stopped fighting. You now store only bottled water and existential dread. The fridge hums contentedly. It’s a smug-sounding hum that rings in your ears. I think it’s laughing. That’s the last straw. You unplug it. Roll it out to the curb. As you walk away, you swear you heard it whisper, “You’ll miss me.”

And you do. 

But only because you’ll never trust a yogurt from your dorm again.

By: Lillian Morris