How Long Will This One Last?

A big event here today. We got a new refrigerator.
Actually, Mandy went shopping again yesterday in search of one and found this one, on sale at a very good price and she bought it. Carrie's fiance and my grandson, Alex, delivered it here last night but we couldn't put it into the space where the old fridge had been until today. The reason being when Robert hauled it up here in the back of his pickup truck, the sales personnel told him once they got it in the house to be sure to let it sit upright for 24 hours before plugging it in and putting foods into it. The reason being it has a compressor and when they had to lay the fridge down to transport it, the oil or grease or whatever it is compressors have to have to function needed to have a chance for all of it to resettle back into its proper places within the inner workings of the unit.
So, tonight, after supper, my son-in-law got the old unit out, Mandy cleaned the floor and wall there and Bill put the new unit in its proper place. Then, the fun began as Mandy and I started taking stuff from the old fridge, determining if it was worth keeping in the case of some small amounts of leftovers or tiny bits of other items that maybe were well beyond their expiration dates. I've never been one to pay any attention, usually, to these expiration dates. To me, if it didn't change color, didn't have green fur growing on it from having been placed in a spot out of sight and didn't smell bad, then it should be ok. But, both my girls really get on my case about expiration dates so needless to say, there were a few things pitched that I might have kept on hand there for oh maybe another year or two or ten. (Just joking about the years there, I'm not quite that bad at tossing things from the fridge.)
The fridge we replaced, I bought when my kids and I moved from the house their dad and I had built, next door to this house which had been my grandparents' home, then my mom's. When my Mom died in October of 1979 and since my ex and I were in the process of getting a divorce then, I decided I would rather live in this house instead of the one we had shared as a couple. And so, I purchased a new stove to replace the relic of a gas range that had been my grandparents stove along with the refrigerator that had also belonged to my grandparents.
Both the stove and refrigerator were delivered on December 7, 1979 and the kids and I completed our move into this house on that day too. That stove got replaced about 8 years ago and I had had several problems with it over the years I owned it too. But the refrigerator - it had given us grief only once and that was two years ago when the compressor went south on it and I had to have it repaired.
So now, Mandy and I are wondering if they - she and Bill - will have as much good luck with this new refrigerator as we had with the one we replaced. Twenty seven years of good service with only one repair is a pretty good track record in my book. Even though because it had a very, and I do mean VERY tiny freezer unit in the bottom, right next to the crisper drawers and always had a tendency to freeze anything you put in the crisper. But other than that, it was a good and faithful refrigerator and I hope it finds a nice home, good use, up in the garage my son-in-law has been building beside my son's house here. The boys are going to use it in the garage as their beverage holder - which means, cases of Mountain Dew for Bill and probably eventually a keg for Clayton.
And I have a bit of follow up information today now too on the "cafeteria" issues Kate had earlier this week at school. It seems the school has instituted this policy as a means to get everyone to stay au currant with their cafeteria accounts and I understood that from the beginning. The manager says that by law, they are permitted to serve simply pb&j sandwiches and an apple, plus milk for a bonafide lunch. They do not recognize the fact that by singling out the students who are in arrears, by labeling them in essence to other students, that this is a discriminatory action. And, the manager even "defended" the practice because several students who had been given cash money for the cafeteria but had spent it elsewhere now were forced to come clean to their parents as to what they had been frittering that money away on over the months. However, he also conceded to me that it is a time-consuming thing for the school to take pains to make up these brown bag lunches too and they can only do it on days basically when no cafeteria worker has called off from work too because then they wouldn't have adequate staffing to make the sandwiches, fix up the bags, etc. Somehow, the whole thing though seems to me a waste of time - and money in the long run too - when the kids won't eat the food and just toss it away then. (And no, I am not condoning that action, just stating it is what many would do with it.) Plus the fact that although the student is not permitted to partake on the days the brown bags are handed out to them of the food prepared for the general population of the school that day, the parents still get billed for that meal anyway. If someone can really show me the logic there of wasted labor, wasting food products, etc., to try to teach kids responsibility when in some instances, it is something out of their control, just makes no sense to me at all. But then too, lots of things that others tell me are totally sensible make no sense to me at times so maybe I am way off base there. Who knows? Feel free to voice your opinion here as I'd love to hear others thoughts on this matter in light of what the manager told me today.

And now - the Bushism for today - and this one, I have to say, I really, really enjoyed and hope you will too!
April 19, 2007
"I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today...He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me." - Nashville, Tennessee; May 27, 2004.

(Pretty good one, isn't it? Come on, you know it is, you gotta admit it on this one it does give cause to chuckle a bit don't 'cha think?)