My Near Catastrophe

Two posts ago, I mentioned that a near catastrophe awaited when we arrived home form the country several days ago. To begin the narrative, let me introduce you to two of my Christmas gifts. The first, to your left, is a Montreal Canadiens throw for the easy chair (for the lazy man) in my den.

The second, to your lower right, is a Montreal Canadiens fridge. That's in my den too. They were both, but especially the fridge, complete surprises, and I am not always easily surprised.

 

I was raised in Montreal, and, although I left the city forty years ago, I still tend to cheer for and identify with their teams. I say this despite the fact that I am no longer a big sports fan. Fan affiliations are odd. I have no reason to cheer for Montreal. I never want to return to the city; I identify more with Toronto than Montreal any more; and I live in Ottawa or near enough, and they have their own teams. Yet, the affiliation for the Canadiens, and the football Alouettes, runs true and deep.

While that explains the paraphernalia, you may be wondering what kind of spoiled old fart has a beer fridge in his upstairs den. Simple enough to explain really. When we moved into this house, our second fridge didn't fit in the basement; so, we stuffed it into our tiny garage. However, even on the warmest setting, we find that it freezes in winter, and exploding pop cans aren't much fun! That left us thinking that it was time to give away our garage fridge (hopefully to a needy family — it's in the works) and replace it with a small beer fridge. I don't really drink much beer, but I do drink much pop (soda to some of my southern neighbours), and it's nice to keep plenty of cans cold in the fridge without completely tying up the main fridge. Yes, it's a frivolous extra in the course of life, but what the heck!

In any event, while we had been mulling all this over, the family took the decision out of my hands by surprising me with this little treat at Christmas. The Boy set it up for me, and set the thermostat to the middle: halfway between the cold and warm extremes. On this middle setting, some ice crystals formed in the cans. So, I decided to lower the setting. Thus begins the near catastrophe, but I must first digress with a little more background

I have opined elsewhere, specifically in my entry entitled Saint Paul, I am mechanically challenged: to the point where it is possible that I suffer from a slight touch of dyslexia or some such, if a slight touch of dyslexia is even possible.

When I was pondering this recently, I remembered two things which may be further indications of such an impairment. One: way back in grade one (or the first grade for Americans), my mother recalls the day that I was kept back after school because I was writing my letters bass-ackwards. Two: I recalled the time that I was signed up for group violin lessons after school. After the first lesson, I went home and practised diligently, only to have the teacher (who wasn't very nice, really) think me some kind of idiot when I held the instrument bass-ackwards when it was my turn to demonstrate my technique in lesson two. What I mean is that my left fingering hand was gripping the instrument with the thumb and fingers reversed.

Back to the present and the fridge for more grist.

Here, to your left, you see the temperature dial. Shouldn't it be obvious that bluer and thicker equals colder? Well, it is to me ... now! But, when I adjusted the temperature before we left for the country last week, I did it wrong. However I came to think it then, I turned the dial colder, not warmer. That's right; I turned it toward the thicker and darker blue to the left rather than toward the warmer right as you see that I have now done in the photo.

To put it mildly, that wasn't a very good thing to do, for when we got home, the fridge door was open. You see, a pop can had exploded with enough force to open the fridge door.

We could have faced a minor catastrophe of a burned out motor and/or water seeping through the upstairs floor. Fortunately, we had to face neither eventuality. We surmise that the explosion was relatively recent for, aside from pop stains in the fridge, no damage was done.

What's the point of this story? None really. It's just that how my brain works, or, more to the point, how my brain doesn't work, is something that I keep learning about myself.