Fix It Yourself!

I recently was visiting my good friend Sara at her Florida beach house. (And let me interrupt myself here to note how important it is to have friends with Florida beach houses, or Colorado mountain homes, or other fabulous places to visit. Not that I knew Sara would have a Florida beach house when we became friends at age 12, but wow I lucked out on that friendship in so many ways.)

Anyway, at the beginning of my visit, Sara noticed that the ice maker in her freezer was not, well, making any ice. It had been a long day, so she essentially turned it off and turned it on again, and we turned in for the night. That works more often than it should (with all sorts of devices), so we decided to give the appliance overnight to show what it could do.

The next day, however, there still was no ice in the freezer. We gave it the day to try harder while we visited the beach, but when we checked again after sunset there had been no change. Now, if I notice that my ice maker is not making ice, generally my first response (after muttering words I’d rather not see in print) is to get on the internet and look up phone numbers for freezer repair services. But not Sara. Sara gets on the internet and looks up You Tube videos on how to fix an ice maker. I am impressed immediately. After checking a few different sites, she chose one that seemed similar to hers and went at it. She was taking things out, thawing parts, putting things back in, turning water off, turning it back on again. I sat on the couch and lamely offered to help a few times but mostly entertained myself by watching. Eventually Sara completed the steps provided by her video of choice and was done for the evening. After a celebratory bowl of ice cream (fortunately the freezer still kept stuff cold!) we went off to bed, hoping the ice maker was fixed and we would wake to a freezer full of cubes.

Alas, it was not to be. By this time, if it were my appliance, I would have been on the internet, checking out prices of new refrigerator/freezers with ice makers. And once I was over the sticker shock, I likely would have purchased plastic ice cube trays and made my peace with the old-fashioned way of making ice–just water, cold and time. However, my friend was not daunted. That third evening (after another day on the beach, of course–we were in Florida, after all), Sara looked for different videos about other things that could be the problem. Once again, I sat on the sofa and watched (a little awed, if I’m honest) as my friend tried new fixes. She manhandled the fridge out of its cubby (I didn’t even get to help with that part!) and wielded a hair dryer with aplomb as she warmed this and tinkered with that and then shoved the fridge back against the wall. Water off, water on, fingers crossed. Another celebratory bowl of ice cream. (Everything should be celebrated with ice cream, really.)

That night as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought I heard the telltale thunk of ice dropping into the ice tray. I smiled to myself, confident that Fix-It Sara had found the solution. And sure enough, when we got up the next morning, the freezer was full of ice! We enjoyed as much ice as we wanted for the rest of my visit–I may have used extra just to revel in the luxury of unlimited frozen water.

But beyond the beauty of a fixed appliance, I learned more. I learned that Sara is indefatigable. I learned that even we (mumble mumble) year old women can fix things on our own. And I learned that the next time I have a broken appliance, I’m not going to call a repair company…I’m going to call Sara.