Meanwhile, Back Home…

Dearest Rachel –

I just stuffed the bags back into the car behind my driver’s seat again this morning. Normally, I’ve got this rotation of two of the many (most of which I either disposed of or gave away) cloth grocery bags you left behind, for when I stop at Aldi – either one, as there’s one on each side of my route back from the ‘office,’ a mile or two north or south of the straight line I would otherwise take back home – but after a couple of trips since returning home, I’ve had to make several visits there, and now both bags have been languishing in the kitchen after being unpacked for a couple of days.

Actually, now that I think about it, a couple of trips in a given week to Aldi aren’t all that big of a deal.  Like I said, it’s not that far out of the way, no matter which direction ‘out of the way’ I decide to take.  It would be roughly equivalent to any of your grocery runs while I was out at work; the only difference being that I wouldn’t be telling you about it at the end of the day, like you would to me (and now that I think about it I’m not sure why you felt the need to let me know that you’ve been shopping, as if I would overrule your judgment as to what we might have needed in terms of comestibles and other consumer products), as you’re not here for me to tell.  I will sometimes let Daniel know where I’m going, just to see if he has anything to add to my list (he rarely does, but you never know), which tends to be fairly basic and routine:

• Fruit – usually blackberries or fresh pineapple chunks
• Cereal – the basic varieties are half the price here as anywhere else
• Milk – ditto as with cereal, and I don’t know how
• Bread – they have a nice sourdough loaf that I can’t get anywhere else

Basically, it’s all the ingredients for one of those complete breakfasts they always used to talk about on cereal commercials, but which they rarely acknowledged that the cereal itself was but a marginal contributor to. But since I’m the only one of us who eats breakfast, I will ask Daniel for his input so as to make sure he gets fed every now and then, too… although he’s as likely to go out on his own if he gets hungry these days. He does have a few favorite places that he patronizes on a weekly basis, as I’ve mentioned to you before.

Now, I hardly have to remind you that I rarely leave with just those four items; hence the need for a shopping bag to bring everything home in. The only thing is that, once I bring the bag inside, I have to bring it back out into the car at some point… and sometimes I forget to do that for a couple of days. A couple of days (and a couple of trips) later, and I’m caught short the next time I feel the need to stop and replenish what we have (and might be running out of). And so that’s where I was this morning, loading up the passenger seat behind me as I was.

But there was one other bag that I was loading up as well; your insulated Sam’s Club bag.  The folks have a few things that they’re storing for us in their freezer – and I need to retrieve everything and get it put back in our house – because… well, there’s no other way to put it, but it seems that ours has conked out yet again. 

I’m not sure why this always keeps happening when I’m out of the country, but there you are. Apparently, there was another leak under the fridge during the first couple of days while I was in Honduras last week. Daniel contacted me immediately on WhatsApp, and I made a series of suggestions for him to deal with the repair process, including transporting what stuff that hadn’t yet thawed to the folks for them to store in their freezer until such time as we could get the situation resolved.

Strangely enough, the situation practically resolved itself; while Daniel managed to get a repair guy to the house, by the time he got there, the freezer was back up and running (and I might point out that the refrigerator part of the appliance never stopped working throughout the whole affair). However, the repair guy did notice that a certain part was showing signs of wear, and told Daniel that he’d order it for us, and that we should have it in three to five days – although at this point, we’re on the fifth business day, with no sign of this replacement part.

Moreover, Daniel was told that, given its age, everything would all be covered under warranty; we wouldn’t have to pay for either the part or the service call. Which is nice, but I’d prefer this not to keep happening in the first place; I don’t see this occurring with the fridge we acquired with the house, and it’s a good twenty, twenty-five years older. They really don’t make ’em like they used to, do they, honey?

In any event, that’s why I’m loading the insulated bag into the car, as well as the usual shopping bags; since our freezer is up and running, I really ought to bring the stuff back from the folks’ place, and not take up all of their freezer space. Maybe not today, necessarily – if the part comes in, the guy will still need to come out and install it, and it might be just as well to not be completely full and in his way. On top of that, there’s a smear of red where something melted in one of the compartments; I may ask Kris to look at (and clean) that out, if possible, and so it shouldn’t be full when she shows up on Monday. But whenever I decide to grab everything and return it back to our place, I’ll have the bag with – as long as I don’t impulsively go shopping for something frozen between now and then…

In which case, honey, I should probably ask you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m sure I’m going to need it, in any event.