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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mandy Wichert. This week, I’ve spent some time learning how to make homemade mascarpone cheese and low-carb tiramisu, because yesterday was my sweet, funny, dashing and charming husband’s birthday! Since we haven’t yet eaten the cake, Clint – I hope it’s delicious! And I believe if you aren’t learning you aren’t living. Today we’re talking about those situations in life when we’re faced with something novel or new and we must make a snap judgment based on your own life experiences. We can’t always know in the short-term if the decision was the best or not, but we have to do our best to make our decisions based on what we do know.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
About 9 years ago, Clint and I had just bought our first home. We were excited and anxious as we made changes to the paint, ripped off wallpaper, laid down tile and pulled out carpet. We also had to purchase new large appliances including a washer, dryer and refrigerator. As we selected paint chips and appliances, I remember feeling like we were spending more money than we had seen at that point. We made our big decisions based on functionality, product ratings, personal experience and our “wants”, knowing that we’d more than likely be living with these large purchases for quite a while.
We opted with a traditional energy-saving washer and dryer combo, avoiding the beautiful, but more costly top loaders. When the time came to purchase the fridge, we were dazzled by the huge array of options, each adding extra dollars to the cost. We stood in the large appliances sections of Best Buy, Sears, Lowes, and Home Depot looking both stupefied and giddy at our potential prospects. Did we want Stainless steel or black? Did we want a side-by-side, or fridge-over-freezer drawer combo? Some fridges had panel inserts that could slide in to change the look of the refrigerator completely.
Luckily, the space constraints on us, based on our home being slightly “vintage” meant that our fridge had to remain on the small side, and there were fewer options in our size category. We had a long hard discussion over what our fridge must absolutely have versus what we could do without, and ultimately decided that we were looking for a side-by-side stainless steel fridge/freezer combo with water and ice in the door. Once we passed that hurdle, we then had to start looking more closely at ratings and fine details. We found out that stainless steel was not magnetic, but found an option that looked like stainless steel, but that was magnetic and also easier to keep clean in a particular brand.
Check! With this decision we had further narrowed our selection down to about four different refrigerators. Did the size of the cube of ice matter? We determined that it really didn’t to us at that time, and the cost of this feature helped us eliminate further down to two different options. Option one had more bells and whistles, fancy lights and alarms and came with a steeper price tag. Option two fit our basic requirements and was a bit less expensive, but with few bells and whistles. We were drawn to the slightly more expensive machine with the top ratings and the beautiful backlight and high energy efficiency rating, but we also wanted to make a practical decision.
Upon investigating further, the slightly pricier machine had a feature that really confused us both. A small sign above the water dispenser raved about the machine’s automatic locking feature. Once engaged, this lock would have to be held for a certain amount of time before disarming to allow the person to get the water or ice that they were after. Clint and I looked at each other bewildered, and amused that someone would actually pay for that feature! We imagined ourselves stumbling sleepily to our fridge door for a cool glass of filtered water, only to be forced to push buttons in a Simple Simon sequence to obtain the water. Why were they making it so difficult to get ice or water out? It reminded us of having to constantly re-enter your password every 30 seconds on your phone due to being locked out and we were worried we’d be frustrated by it. It honestly made no sense to us. That one feature, along with the heftier price tag made our decision so much easier. We opted for the machine that met our needs, without causing us to waste time or extra money.
Fast forward to today. That quick decision based on our needs at that time has served us well. Our fridge is still energy efficient, compact and seems to cool our food well. It’s still going strong into its 9th year, and still looks good in our new kitchen. It has performed the way we had hoped it would when we purchased it. It has served us through three babies and all the homemade baby food and milk we could muster. But recently the strangest thing started happening. Small amounts of water were pooling directly in front of my refrigerator. I would mop them up and within minutes of me walking away, they would re-appear. I could not figure out where they were coming from. Was it condensation?
We moved the fridge out and checked out the cooling unit. No, all was fine there. We also didn’t have a break in the line or a slow leak around the tubing. No ice was being dropped on the floor that wasn’t being picked up and disposed of. So what was it? The mystery of it was maddening. Then, one evening while cooking I observed a new phenomenon. My youngest had just figured out that by standing on her tiptoes, she was tall enough to fill up a cup of water if she propped it in just the right way against the cup sensor on my fridge. She was not tall enough to retrieve the cup without incident, however. She backed away from the machine, unsteadily with her small cup of water, and it sloshed out over the edges as she regained her balance. There was my puddle.
At our previous home, the open cups were all placed well out of reach of little curious fingers, so we had never come across this before. Once my other little ones were big enough to independently get their own cups, they were also big enough to know to wipe up their own spills. To my littlest though, it’s become a game. My kitchen is configured in a way that I have nowhere out of her reach to store our small drinking cups, giving her constant access to the fridge and as she’s gotten even taller, she’s grown even more creative with her water retrieval skills.
The other day, my older kids were home and spending time in the living room. I quietly wandered away to my room to work on something for a bit without distraction. About ten minutes later, I was feeling parched, so I got up to get a quick drink from the kitchen. I was wearing socks and as my foot crossed over from carpet to tile, I felt an immediate cold, drenching sensation. Across my entire floor was standing water about ½” high! I plodded over it to grab a kitchen towel and quickly realized that one towel was not enough for the job. I soaked through three full-sized bath towels, only to turn and find Renna standing smiling at me, staring at the fridge with a huge drinking cup in her hand.
I questioned my older kids to find out just what had happened, but she had worked stealthily. Apparently she was filling and dumping the cup onto the floor with the speed, agility and light steps of a ninja. Neither of my older children had noticed her flooding my floor despite being in the same room with her! After recounting this story to Clint he reminded me about the fridge we didn’t choose and that silly lock feature we had both laughed at so long ago. I get it now. I take back every chuckle I had back then! There is no after-market solution for such a problem, but it seems that the Internet has been faced with this dilemma before. I’m not surprised, because I am surely not the first with a curious toddler and a water dispenser.
What did I learn?
Don’t make a snap judgement or be quick to assume you know all the answers. What may seem frivolous or unnecessary at first glance, may serve a far greater purpose. When Clint and I laughed whole-heartedly about the absurd lock on the water and ice mechanisms on the fridge we were considering years ago, we had no idea that we would be daydreaming of that genius device now. The phrase hindsight is 20/20 comes to mind, but it’s more than that.
Many people probably would still consider the fridge water and ice machine lock silly; people that had not had children interested in creating wading pools in their kitchens, for example. The decision we made 9 years ago affects us now and will continue to until the novelty of filling and spilling cups wears off. I’m sure we’ve made many other snap judgments like this, those that affect us in minute and major ways throughout the courses of our lives. Please be mindful of the “leaky” fridge when you next consider laughing about an added feature that seems frivolous. One day, it might just come in handy.
I’m Mandy Wichert, and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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