New Refrigerator Adjustments—Don’t Bump Your Head and Hang onto the Rag!

We’ve had our new refrigerator for a month, and I’ve discovered on the drawback side that it has one fewer shelf and only two produce drawers instead of the three the old one had. I’m still trying to figure out the best spacing for the shelves. On the plus side, it has much more door shelf space and the shelves in the body are deeper. I can put much more in the door, but I have a hard time finding space for bags of salad and stalks of celery. But these are the adjustments one expects with a new model. However, there are some unexpected adjustments (lessons) too.

Lesson #1: Don’t bump your head.

The outer door handles stick out farther, and we’ve both bumped our heads and/or shoulders on the freezer door while trying to put in or take out things from the fridge section.

Lesson #2: Hold onto the rag when dusting!

My DH insists on dusting/vacuuming the space between the fridge and the cabinet. This new fridge fits tighter to the cabinet and there’s no more than an inch of space there, but he insisted on cleaning there as usual. I told him, “Use a rag draped over a yardstick, and hang onto the rag.”

My DH heard the first part but not the second, so when I came home, he had the rag stuck way back in the narrow space and was prepared to pull out the fridge to remove it. Now the last thing I wanted to do at 7 p.m. was pull out a fridge that fit perfectly where it was, so I applied my creative problem-solving skills, opened a wire coat hanger, shaped it into a stick with a hook on the end, and pulled out the rag.

While my solution may have looked brilliant, I assured him it was born of experience, having “lost a rag” myself more than once. Which leads me to the final lesson…

Lesson #3: If someone wants to clean, let him.

Hope you’re all having a wonderful new year!