There was a glacier at the bottom of the freezer where the water dispenser had leaked; it’s been there for some time because you couldn’t get at it without going without a fridge. We’d tried previously, with two hair dryers on it full blast nonstop but it just didn’t dent that block.

I’m still on take it pretty easy mode but her time here is winding down.

And so we ate down the stuff in the fridge over several days, she moved stuff into the big freezer and then put ice packs around the little bit still in the fridge, opened the freezer door, and left it to sit overnight.

She had emptied the ice maker. I scooped the cubes up into a quart container for one last try at keeping the fridge side cold.

Then I tried putting a pan of hot water on top of the ice block. Five times. I taped the open door button closed so the light could go off. We’d slid the “Colder_____Off” to Off already. Huh. Couldn’t unplug the thing without moving the whole fridge and nobody’s back here was going to be able to do that.

There was still impressively solid ice in the morning. But surely underneath it was quietly giving way.

But the towels arranged against and below it were not soaked. At least the one on top was damp.

I tapped at the block. Nope! Wow.

At 11:03 a.m.–she laughed when I told her what time it was–I smashed at that ice once more and then gave a mighty yank to the wire drawer and it came! Freed at last! I knocked the ice out of it into the sink.

About four hours later she dumped some hot water on it to make that clump finally finally go away for good and that was that. (I was thinking, No wonder it takes a week to thaw a turkey in a fridge!)

Now we can fit dairy and dairy free ice creams in there without the twain ever meeting. Look at all that space! Organized, too!

But the real incentive was, that fridge was bought in 1994 and this was either going to prove once and for all that it and its broken shelf support here and missing cover there had to go because the fridge side just wasn’t staying cold enough–

–or it would fix that problem.

It’s been 24 hours since I put the ice cubes in to help the fridge side stay cold overnight. There was just that quart container.

I typed the above and out of sudden curiosity walked back in there and dipped my hand into it.

There was one last ice chip still floating at the top there.

They used to make them like they don’t now, didn’t they?