Our refrigerator is kaput

It was here in 1998 when we moved in, so we can't complain.

But it's time for a new one.

I once said I didn't want a life in which I owned refrigerator magnets shaped like fruit. I am skating precariously close.

To be fair, the rooster and Cocker Spaniel magnets are not mine. They were brought into the apartment by someone that I love enough to tolerate little stuff like this, even though rooster magnets are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I contributed the DeLorean note pad.

I was pushing for this retro refrigerator as a replacement. I thought it would look really cool--it would make us look really cool. You could cover it with rooster magnets and it would still be cool.

I told Jen it was the only one I could find online that would fit the space in our kitchen. But it was $2,000, and I had the misfortune of recommending it on the day we got an email alert from Chase that our checking account was overdrawn. Jen found an alternative for $700 that should fit just fine.

Life's little compromises.

In the meantime, we've put ice in the freezer--a makeshift ice box, like the '30s--and pared down to the bare essentials.

And life will go on.