You know that mental image you have of yourself as like, independent and not subject to your surroundings? Like, how we all have it in our heads that yeah, sure, I know my experiences and memories shape me a bit, but that’s not all of it. That’s not the whole thing, right?
Anyway, last year I changed my life because we bought a new fridge.
I am at the point in my life where I am no longer living with a second hand thing that was bought from a store that specialised in refurbishing whitegoods and that worked pretty well for the space we had. I wrote about this fridge once, about how the light didn’t work, and that never landed in my brain as the default.
This fridge lived in an alcove in our kitchen, and it was, as far as I could tell, pretty much the right size for it. But Fox, sick of a variety of problems with it, and wanting something to improve its efficiency, dedicated some of our money to buying it.
It’s wild that I feel ashamed for admitting that. That we bought a fridge. That somehow in this time of our lives, when remote work is something I can do and she can do well that we were able to save money and now, when I talk about things like labor and valuing people’s work and joining a union and being poor as a kid, I’m going to have someone go yeah but you bought a fridge.
Anyway, this fridge has changed a lot of my day.
The fridge has room for a large tank of water, and two bottles. It also has a water dispenser in the door, meaning at any given time the most convenient thing to do, if I want a drink, is to have a bit of water. Not a lot, because completely filling a glass is annoying. Result? I’m drinking more water. Also, the schedule of refilling the water each night before I go to bed means that I’m keeping the sink clear, and that means more dishes put in the washer before bed, rather than ‘ah, I’ll do it in the morning.
The crisper drawer is bigger and higher and closer to my eye level. I no longer have to tilt down to look into it. I no longer have to worry about if I already have too much of a head of lettuce, and therefore, I can’t buy another one, meaning that there are times when I may want lettuce and I can’t have any, just because of the modest logistics of a small crisper drawer.
The freezer is large, but has drawers. This means that it’s very effective got a large purchase of food that can then be frozen for long durations and thawed at meal times. This is making me plan ahead for meals more, because it’s not wasted effort.
This single piece of household infrastructure has made a bunch of stuff in my life tangibly easier and therefore, as a result, better for the way I want to live my life and it’s because we did the tremendously middle-class thing of getting a good appliance.
It feels weird to stare at it and think about the impact. Like surely this wasn’t the barrier to doing these things.
Right?
Surely.