He's DEAD, Jim.

Darling one, brace yourself. Get tissues. Have a hugger on deck. This may be tough to take.

Refrigerator is dead.

I know, I know. It was a million years old and hideously inefficient. And in the last few days, it was obviously pursuing its secret goal to be an oven. But I'm always sad when the time comes to let something go.

I do so let things go. Don't be mean. In fact, Roommate and I already set for a new refrigerator! We didn't even take time to mourn, but given our delight in refrigeration, this is not terribly shocking, is it?

Anyway, after a quick stop at Weight Watchers last night, Roommate and I popped over to Home Depot to price new refrigerators. Roommate's mother had very graciously agreed to let us purchase the new fridge on her Home Depot credit card, allowing us to repay her before the next billing cycle. Normally, we'd let our landlords handle this, but we were unable to reach them.

Upside: Home Depot is having a huge sale!

Downside: Deliveries are booked out for the next eleven days!!!

Now, despite the fact that we have Home Depot available and the means to acquire a refrigerator, Roommate has been under a dark cloud since this happened. Really dark. Seriously dark. Looking-for-the-twister-to-touch-down-and-did-you-say-your-name-was Dorothy dark. She's been enormously put out by this situation and even though she and her mother went to buy and arrange for delivery for the refrigerator this morning, she hasn't been able to unclench and see it as an inconvenience that will be solved very shortly.

This wasn't helped by the fact that her mother insisted on returning home immediately after the sales transaction was completed, completely unwilling to have the new fridge loaded into the back of her truck and transported to our house. Roommate spent a fair amount of time trying to reach our friend with a truck to arrange for a pick-up.

So. New fridge purchased. Not yet delivered or transported by us. Dark, flying-monkey-filled cloud hovering over Roommate's head. But really, problem was essentially solved. The solution was simply...pending. I wasn't thrilled at the thought of getting a 172-pound appliance up the three stairs to our house and into the spot in the kitchen, but...[extremely Gallic shrug] What's to be done? The problem-solving was nearly complete.

Until the landlords called us back from an appliance store, having just purchased a new refrigerator for us.

Timing. It's a beautiful thing.