Case of the Reluctant Refrigerator or "Waiting for Godot" Redux

VLADIMIR:

Ah Gogo, don't go on like that. Tomorrow everything will be better.

ESTRAGON:

How do you make that out?

VLADIMIR:

Did you not hear what the child said?

ESTRAGON:

No.

VLADIMIR:

He said that Godot was sure to come tomorrow. (Pause.) What do you say to that?

ESTRAGON:

Then all we have to do is to wait on here.

                From Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett


We moved to our present home many years ago on a shoestring with two young girls and a baby boy.  The home was roomy, with a nice sized yard and a huge downstairs family room, making it ideal for people with children. The size and the affordable price came with some sacrifices. Namely accepting that everything wasn't in tiptop shape and beautiful.


The kitchen may have been the most ugly. It was old. The stove was gas and had open flame burners on top of somewhat dubious safety. There was a built-in wall oven, also gas, that worked for perhaps one week after we moved in. There was no dishwasher and a small sink, with a garbage disposal, which quit perhaps a month after the wall oven. The lights were ugly, especially the bizarre yellow and brown chandelier over the eat-in corner. The side walls were covered with a greenish tile and the cabinets were a very heavy dark brown wood, which was beginning to separate.


But it was what we could afford and so we lived with it for a decade and a half. In that time those old heavy cabinet doors, repainted many times and a lighter shade,  began to fall off. We would screw them back up, but their weight and the old splitting wood reached a point where nothing would keep some in place. By the mid-1990s we were cooking in a kitchen Ghetto. Even the refrigerator we had hauled with us from hear and there over the years had lost a handle and looked defeated.


Then the gas range became more erratic and we began to fear either an explosion or dying in our sleep from leaking gas fumes. We could live in this mess no longer. It was time to tear out and rebuild and so I borrowed from my 401K (something that would have repercussions a few years down the road, but that is a tale for another time) and we ordered up a new kitchen.

And so they came and ripped away and all the hanging doors, non-working or dying appliances and threatening ranges were gone. That old gas oven sits forlornly in the rumble waiting to be toted away to the gas range happy baking ground with the old non-working garbage disposal atop it.


Soon the transformation took place.

This was not without hitches, of course, one being a fowl-up on the backsplash for the counters. Somehow it got lost in translation and thus the wallpaper. Eventually the wallpaper was peeled away and the Little Woman got out her tools and tiled the back wall behind the counters. 

Everything was new. We replaced the old gas range and wall oven with an electric range and built-in microwave. We installed a dishwasher and a working garbage disposal. We even got a new refrigerator.


All back in the mid-1990s.

Several months ago our new-now-old refrigerator began to do an odd thing. Water began to puddle on the bottom shelf and in the meat drawer. Just a bit of moisture at first, but over time the water grew deeper and more frequent and we had to be constantly emptying the meat drawer into the sink. I even put in racks on the bottom shelf to keep things above the rising tide. Very annoying and certainly a possible health hazard.


There was also the knowledge that whatever was going wrong, this fridge could stop fridging at anytime. And thus I set out one day to surprise the Little Woman by buying a new refrigerator.


Off I went to a very famous big box store that use to have two names but now goes by only one. It has existed for a long time and was once very famous for catalogues. It was having a refrigerator sale. They had many, many brands and units on display, all with good markdowns.


I had to eliminate many from possibility because of size. We have two cabinets above the space where the unit must go, so this limits the height to less than 68 inches. Not at, but less than 68 inches, and most of the refrigerators I examined were at or above that height.


I also wanted something a bit different from what we had always had, that is a white or almond unit with two big handles on the front. I finally settled on a right sized, black refrigerator and summoned forth a salesman named Babu. 


Babu clicked all the information into the register and then he made that familiar "Hmmm" sound. Hmmm sounds when you are purchasing something are never a good thing.


"Ah," he says, "this particular model is out of stock. Is it an emergency?"


No, it isn't an emergency since it was more of a whim and spur-of-the-moment to come here, but who knows, next week it could be.


"It must be ordered," he says. "Can you wait perhaps 15 days to three weeks for delivery."


"Sure," I say. This is all happening on July 8.


So I buy the black refrigerator and pay for it on a credit card, we shake hands and everybody is happy.  I go home and print a picture of the new black refrigerator off the Web and then I show and tell my wife and now my wife is also happy. Three weeks is not so long to wait. There is a number to check at what time they will show up at the home that you can call the night before delivery. You can also call to see when delivery is scheduled, nice little convenience that.


And so we go on with our lives, dealing with all the other problems that have assaulted us this summer, the leaking faucets and the car inspection and other things I will someday tell you. The three weeks fly by. It is sometime around that fifteenth day and I decided I should call that number and see when delivery is scheduled.


It is all automated. It almost sounds like a real human woman talking to you, but it isn't, but it knows what I want as soon as it answers and says I have a refrigerator scheduled for delivery on August 2.


So okay, that is more like 25 days after I purchased this thing, not 15 or even three weeks. But close enough and I will call Sunday evening next week to get a time frame for the Monday delivery.


We wait out the next week and I come home from work on Friday and there is a message that the store delivery service had called. I call them back and a lady answers, not a mechanized voice, but a real woman with a heavy accent very hard to comprehend compared to the nice clear automated voice. 


"You have a refrigerator scheduled for delivery," she says (I think that was what she said) after I explain I am calling regarding a message, "for August 5," she continues.


What? August 5, I thought it was coming August 2.


"No, no, August 5. You call night before get exact time window. Thank you for shopping..."


Oh well, what the heck. It's only an extra three days. Maybe this is better. I work on Monday, August 2, but I am off on the fifth, so I'll be home for sure when they come. The Little Woman likes it if I can be there for these things even though she is real good of handling such matters.  It just makes her more comfortable.


I do not call on Wednesday evening, I do not pass go, I do not collect $200 dollars, I go straight to jail.


I am up bright and early, as usual, on Thursday morning August 5. I have no idea when they will deliver the refrigerator, but I am not going to wait until the last minute.  The Little Woman had already cleaned most of food from it and we had been eating out almost every night this week rather than buy new groceries until after the new unit arrives.


Still there is stuff remaining.  I carry the frozen items downstairs and push them in our freezer, which is getting pretty much full.


I come back and now I take the milk, eggs, butter, a dozen or so yogurt containers, some cheese and a couple other things and ram these in the small fridge in the computer room. This little fridge is actually my sons and we use it for our personal beverages. He has some beer and soda in it and I have my own soda, chocolate milk, iced tea, water and orange juice there. There isn't much room, but I get the essentials from the kitchen in there as well. Fortunately neither my son or I had stocked up on our drinks lately.


I now remove the kitchen table to allow more room for the delivery guys to maneuver. I take out about a dozen wine and other beverage bottles from the fridge and set them aside on a bench. Now I go out to the shed and get a large plastic tub to put all the condiments from the door shelves in and as I begin this process the phone rings.


It is about 7:o0 in the morning.  I look on the Caller ID and it is the store. Perhaps the refrigerator is this very moment a few miles away and they will be here by 8:00.


I answer the phone and now I am speaking to Anna or something like that, who is another real woman with another real heavy accent and it ain't a Boston accent and it ain't a Georgia drawl and it ain't even a Tennessee twang.  It ain't the King's English either and she is saying something about there was a delay problem with the manufacturer, but the manufacturer does have a refrigerator in their warehouse with my name on it and it will be delivered August 14.


"You call night before, get time window. Thank you for shopping..."


I didn't do well in math in high school, I admit. But I was an accountant for several years. I think I can add and subtract. Tell me what you get, but I get something more than 15 days between July 8 and August 14.


I'm glad they called to tell me. At least I hadn't gotten all the condiments out of the old refrigerator.


I spend the next half hour reversing all I did. All the wine bottles and such, back on their shelf. The milk and eggs and cheese and yogurt back from the computer room. The ice cream back up from the downstairs freezer. The plastic tub back in the storage shed. The kitchen table back where it belongs. The new refrigerator somewhere in limbo.


Now we must wait another 9 days.


Waiting for Frigdot.

ESTRAGON:

Then all we have to do is to wait on here.

VLADIMIR:

Are you mad? We must take cover. (He takes Estragon by the arm.) Come on.

He draws Estragon after him. Estragon yields, then resists. They halt.

ESTRAGON:

(looking at the tree). Pity we haven't got a bit of rope.

VLADIMIR:

Come on. It's cold.

He draws Estragon after him. As before.

ESTRAGON:

Remind me to bring a bit of rope tomorrow.

On Friday the Thirteenth (how is that for foreboding) I again call that number and get the mechanical woman with the gentle voice and that gentle voice says, "You have a refrigerator scheduled for delivery between 4:45 and 6:45 tomorrow..."

"The sun'll come out

Tomorrow 

So ya gotta hang on 

'Til tomorrow 

Come what may 

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! "

Maybe.


I mean, would you trust it to happen at this point?


I am up bright and early Saturday morning, tomorrow is today, and I have moved the frozen stuff and the essential stuff and the wine bottles and the condiments. I have removed the kitchen table. I have carried a large cedar chest up four steps from the entry way and placed it well out of the way of the delivery people. I have moved the dining room table and chairs to clear the easiest path for them to go. 


I am scrubbing out the innards of the old drippy fridge when the phone rings. It is about 7:00 in the morning. I look at the Caller ID and it is the store, de javu all over again.


Man, oh, man, am I starring in a remake of "Groundhog Day"?


I answer and a male voice with a heavy Spanish accent says, "We are delivering a refrigerator today. Please make sure someone is there between 4:45 and 6:45 this afternoon."


Now, we usually go out to dinner on Saturday evening and this may make us leave late and lose the chance of getting into our favorite restaurant, but who cares if this reluctant refrigerator just shows its face.

A minute or so before 4:00 PM a truck magically appears out front. Two nice Hispanic gentlemen carry -- that's right -- carry out my old fridge and carry in the new fridge. 


Now we must just wait 24 hours for the refrigerator to cool before we can put food in. This I will be doing this afternoon. My one though is, what if it had been an emergency? What if the refrigerator just died? Thirty-seven days without refrigeration would be worse that what they had 100 years ago. 


Black beauty is finally corralled. Welcome to our kitchen Godot.

Samuel Beckett waiting for a refrigerator.

Ms Drill Instructor

There I sat in this corral of lambs for the slaughter. The line was still encircling the room like a giant python about to constrict us foolish sheep engulfed by it. It writhed slowly about the outer edges of the room, some never-ending body with no head and no tail.

I had chosen a seat at the very rear corner of this captive audience. It had been relatively easy to get to and I was not entrapped in the middle of a row where people would be crawling over me to come and go nor would I be climbing over them. It didn't take me long to realize this was a mistake.

It was getting rather warm in the room, so there was a small advantage being on the outer fringe. I had a teeny pocket of space rather than total engulfment by bodies all giving off heat, but it wasn't much comfort. It was still hot and I was beginning to sweat. Where was the air conditioning?

My real difficulty was hearing.

A woman's voice suddenly came out of somewhere to the front right of the room, the furtherest point from where I sat, and was saying something to we of the mob. I strained forward to hear. Now I know when I came in there was a podium with a microphone attached front and center , but for some reason she chose to stand to the far side of it and speak without amplification.  She was reading a list of names. Here and about the room someone would get up and go forward toward her direction. I couldn't see her because of the continuing line snaking through between her and I. I could barely hear her because as soon as she began calling her list odd cliques in the line just behind me began chatting about the minutia of their daily life in raised, giggling voices. Also at that moment I found the air condition as it suddenly snapped to life above my head with a constant hiss.

And so it went. The line limped along and a distant voice called forth bodies and I leaned further and further over listening for my own name. 

And then, finally, the line ended, its tail wiggled by and around and everyone coming had come. Every seat was filled and bodies stood or sat against the walls all about, with some small globs standing in the middle of the center aisle and another cluster of souls grouped near the entryway. Perhaps with the movement of feet done or just having grown use to this environment, I could hear the woman better. She was not calling names at that moment, she was saying she saw women standing and gentlemen should give their seat to the ladies.

Hey, what happened to the demand for equal treatment between the sexes? I though women had fought hard for the right to stand uncomfortably in a crowded room? Should they be forced to give up what they earned now for the sake of a seat?

Actually, because I'm an old guy from a different time when gentlemen did do such things for the fairer sex, I had just been about to give my seat to a woman standing by the wall opposite me. For one thing, I stand all day on my job so felt I am used to being on my feet for long periods, but with that announcement I was caught between gallantry and shame. Getting up now wouldn't appear a polite gesture, it would simply look like I was goaded into it. Maybe that is how all the men felt. Perhaps they had all been on the verge of sacrificing their hard plastic chair to some dainty lady along the wall and now they felt chided and reluctant. I saw no movement among the seated to change positions.

But I did. I left my chair and walked down along the left wall and squeezed in between a surly looking young man and a young woman seated on the floor.

I admit it wasn't all altruism. From this vantage point I could see the speaker and more importantly, hear her better.

 As I stood there I noticed the pretty young woman at my feet wore a very low cut top, one very revealing from my height above. Obviously I must be a sex pervert for it took me no time at all to notice this. Oh come on, I may be an old man, but I'm not a dead one.

The distant woman, who was obviously our caretaker for the day,  continued to call names. I saw those who came forth go to her one by one. She handed them a sheet of paper, whispered something in their ear and each then went to a table where a pail of pencils sat. They wrote something on the paper and brought it back to the woman, then returned to their seat. Rats, I though she was calling people to go to courtrooms. No one was going anywhere. The crowd was becoming a bit overbearing as time passed. I was waiting for my name so I could find out what this ritual was about, but before I was called she shifted gears.

And now finally, she moved to the podium with the microphone. Apparently she could not get to this microphone earlier because of that python snaking around the room. Now what she said was loud and clear.  She ordered everyone to listen up as free parking was about to be awarded.

"Take out your parking stub," she said, "and hold it up."

"Its like the lottery, isn't it?" I said to the surly looking guy. He just nodded, but surlily and gazed disdainfully at his parking stub. I, of course, had no stub.

"Look at the number below the name of the lot," the woman said. "If you see a number 43 below that name, then you have free parking. When you are dismissed for the day you will go to the garage. You will find your car. You will then start your car and you will drive to the gate. You will put your stub in the slot and the gate will rise, and you will go home."

My Surly did not have a 43 on his stub.

"If you do not have a 43 on your stub," said the woman, "look below the name of the lot. If you have a 44, you have reduced parking. When you are dismissed for the day you will go to the garage. You will go to the walkup pay window and you will pay $7.00. You will now have ten minutes to find your car and get to the gate. If you do not get to the gate in ten minutes, the reduced rate will go up to the regular fee and you will pay $10.00.

"Therefore, people, I suggest you find your car before you go to the walkup pay window."

She then called roll for those in jury type Capital Murder.

Ouch! Capital Murder, don't want on that jury, oh, no, no, that isn't going to be over in a day for sure. She called out the names and each person was to answer if they were present. We got some "here"s, some "yes"s and an occasional "present". Then we got someone who corrected the pronunciation of their name. 

Oops!

The woman in charge looked at this person. "Folks," she said, "I am going to mispronounce some of your last names. I am going to mispronounce some of your first names. This list is in alphabetical order. You should know about where you will be. If I call something near close to your name, just answer here."

I liked this woman. She had a sense of humor, she made us laugh sometimes, she made the day bearable, but she had the look of a former drill sergeant. I remember when my daughter got through Basic training and came home. She told us the first thing she learned was when the DI said something you don't roll your eyes. She had and the next thing she knew she was doing pushups in a mud puddle with a fifty pound pack on her back. This woman calling roll looked like if she said, "Get down and give me twenty" you would get down and give her twenty and throw in an extra five just to be on the safe side.

She must have called over a hundred names before she asked, "Anyone here jury type Capital Murder whose name I did not call."

A man in the back raised his hand.

"What's your name?"

He gave it.

"You jury type Capital Murder?"

"I don't know," he says, "what's a jury type."

"Okay people. Pull out your summons. Look in the upper right hand corner. You will see the words 'Jury Type'. Sir, do you see the words Jury Type?"

"Yes."

"Do the words, 'Capital Murder' appear next to jury Type?"

"No."

"Then that is why I did not call your name, sir."

As I stood there, still waiting to hear my own name called for something, for anything, a young white man walked by a couple times.  He wore a Phillies T-shirt, satiny white basketball style shorts with a red stripe down the side and a Phillies baseball cap turned backward upon his head. Blast, I guess I could have worn my plain black hat, right way around, after all. And to think I was worried about courtroom decorum!

Someone in a uniform came in and handed our Drill Instructor lady a paper.

"Quite down out there, people," she said. "I'm going to get some of your out of here. I call your name you come up and form a line at the door. Your bailiff is Jeffrey. He will instruct you as to where to do. The paper you are handed, do not read it, it will only confuse you."

She now read off a batch of names and people filed out the entryway.  She turned and looked at them.

"What I tell you? I told you, do not read it, it will only confuse you. See now, you're reading it and now you are confused." She turned back to the rest of us. "When I tell you to do something, do it. I'm trying to help you people up here. Listen to me. I tell you, 'Don't read it'; then don't read it! It will only confuse you."

She called another batch, who marched out, then another and another. These were the prospective jurors for the capital murder case. There must have been well over a hundred of them. Yeah, that trial isn't going to be over in a day or two. It'll probably take them two weeks to impanel a jury.

Of all the people there this day, I only heard one familiar name, William S. It wasn't a common last name like Smith. It was a fairly uncommon one, so I wonder is it was the Bill S. I once worked for 13 years ago. He was called in one of these batches and sure enough as he walked down the aisle I could see it was him, looking 13 years older (as if I didn't). Poor fellow, he was on the capital murder list.

Once the capital murder unfortunates had left the room, she called everyone from the four corners of this world who were left into the main room. Those back in the little vending machine cafe adjoining the room were ordered forth. We were all told to find a seat and sit. Now she said she was going to call the petit jury type roll call.

Some guy in the back raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"What's petit mean," he asked?

She raised an eyebrow and answered, "Small."

I am meanwhile trying to determine the time on the watch of a man across from me. I could not quite get the angle of the hands. It looked to be perhaps a bit before 10:00 or a bit after 10:00 or it could have been about 11:00.

She was calling roll. Again the "yeses", "heres" and "presents" until she came to a man seated to the front of me. She called his name.

"Shake 'n' bake," he answered.

She sternly repeated his name.

"Here, " he humbly replied.

When she called my name I gave a stout "here" in return.

Darn, I wish I could figure out the guy's watch. How long have we been here and then I heard my name called again.  She was back to calling little groups to her. I was going to find out what the mysterious paper was. I went forward and was handed the questionnaire I had filled out and sent back right after I received my summons. Two areas were highlighted in green. She whispered in my ear I must fill these space in. One was for my work number, which I had left blank because at the time I had no idea what my work number was. The other was Race. I had deliberately left that blank on principle. (It is too long to explain my stand on race here, that will take some future post.)

I went and filled in the spaces, hoping the number on the little folded yellow Post-it I fumbled from my wallet really was my work number, and returned it to her. I wasn't about to argue my theory on race with the sergeant. I had no intention of doing pushups in a mud puddle. I handed in my completed form and returned to my seat.

When, I wondered, will we ever be called to a jury if at all?

If not at all, when would we be dismissed?

And what was the time on that guy's watch?

The answers lay ahead.