MEMORIAL DAY RANT – 3/3

3/3 –  “Lemonade Happens”

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Okay,  I can’t stay ranty for long.   I was “real mad”  when this first happened – right before all my out-of-state Memorial Day weekend company (which, by the way, are all still here).

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”    I don’t like that little saying.  It’s too . . .  too . ..    too Pollyanna.    Most often, in real life,  you just have to deal with the lemons.

But once in a while —  lemonade happens.

Last Friday was the day I should have been all ready for my California family to visit for the holiday weekend.   Laundry done, house cleaned, shopping,  baking, cooking, activities planned —

—  AND my new refrigerator had arrived and my old one was now clean and emptied, ready for pick up from the utility company,  which would give me a nice $50 check,   I guess for “upgrading” to a more modern refrigerator.

 

Company coming and TWO refrigerators in the kitchen.   Everything else pushed over, displaced, or covered up.  But it was going to be okay because the utility company was going to come and take one away.

A “four-hour window”  for their arrival, during which time I couldn’t do any last-minute shopping;  just hang around the house.    Waiting.

And they never showed up.   No phone call.  Nothing.   They had called two days before to ask for my confirmation.    I confirmed.  Twice.   No idea why they didn’t come,  but with all the busyness and tension — happy tension, getting ready for company —  frustration turned to anger.

I called fifteen minutes before the end of the business day when I was pretty sure they weren’t coming.  As withi all corporations,  I endured multiple transfers to various departments,  but I finally got a nice Customer Service lady who said she would look into it right away and come back with an answer — maybe they were still on their way.   She put me on hold (yet again)  and I waited.  She came back to ask some questions, put me on hold again.

And then a corporate type recording came on the line announcing that business hours were over, please call again on Monday.   Which of course the Robot Recording didn’t know that Monday would be Memorial Day.

So the Customer Service lady and I were cut off while we were communicating.

That’s the LEMONS!     And I let them have it via email,  text messaging, and the complaint form on the Website.

Then,  free to go out shopping for company, I came home with a load of groceries and found my new refrigerator was overfilled . . .

. . . . and overflowed into my old refrigerator.

That’s the LEMONADE.  I can’t tell you how many times we were all grateful for plenty of refrigerator space!      We’d bring home leftovers from restaurants and  have plenty of room to store them!     Lots of bulky fruits and vegetables.  Lots of things to drink!  No spills, knocking things over,  stuffing the shelves.

So the joke’s on me.  I laughed at my previous anger;  I laughed at myself,  many times!  We’ve had a great fun visit, everyone enjoying the novelty of using two refrigerators.

Moral of the story:   Things are often better than  what they seem.    I can handle this.   No need for such momentary frustration.

Glad to have two refrigerators!!!

(But I’m not going to tell the utility company that!)

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