Boy, do I ever feel dumb.

And not even the kind of dumb where you’re like, “Well, that was kind of silly – I hope nobody was watching…” so much as “That was quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done – let us never speak of it again.” Which is, of course, exactly why here I am, writing a humor column about it, of all things! I guess they say, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at?” right?!

Well, in that case, this one’s on me.

It all started on a dark and stormy night – metaphorically speaking, anyways – when I found myself arisen from my slumber in need of a cold drink of water. And it’s important to note that despite otherwise hating the cold with a passion, I prefer my beverages such as water as cold as the arctic sea. Of course, with the sunny state of Florida being a good 4,293 miles from the chilly waters of the North Pole, I’m instead forced to use a mechanical device of sorts called a refrigerator to keep my drinking water at the preferred, icy temperature, and therein lies but the start of the problem that I encountered that painfully memorable evening…

For you see, upon stumbling blindly across the house in search of a refreshing glass of ice water to quench my thirst before returning to Never Never Land, it was quickly and abruptly brought to my notice that trouble was afoot with regards to the proper operations of said magic makey coolly box in our kitchen, as the glass of cold, bone-chilling water was anything but … in fact, it was actually quite warm. A quick survey of other items throughout the so called refrigerator were also much warmer than optimal, leading me to believe that it was “broken,” if you will, however one house call from our friendly, yet exceedingly-overpriced neighborhood appliance repairman later, as it turns out the refrigerator wasn’t so much “broken” as I was “feeling more foolish than that time in high school when I had to go to the prom as my own prom date.”

Boy, was that awkward, but let’s just stick with horrendously embarrassing story at a time right now…

Anyways, as it turns out, the lovely GE Side-by-Side Refrigerator Freezer that our house came equipped with has this wonderfully retarded little feature wherein if the freezer door stays open for what it considers to be an excessive amount of time, the beast goes and assumes that you’re doing some spring cleaning and throws itself into defrost mode … even if you’re actually just in the middle of an indecisive, late-night raid in dire need of some Chunky Monkey. Allegedly just that had happened on a prior, sleep-induced snacking mission and sent our fridge into a defrosting frenzy from which it hadn’t yet recovered when I returned for my encore eating extravaganza…

Now the real trouble, mind you, came not from this less than chilling glass of drinking water that did little to help coax me back to sleep, but more so from awakening the following morning to find that the refrigerator was still amidst its defrosting cycle … except that at that point I didn’t actually know that it was attempting to defrost itself – just that it was no longer keeping things cold, which was coincidentally the primary reason that we made sure to choose a house that had one. If it didn’t matter whether or not certain foodstuffs were kept at or below 37 degrees Fahrenheit, I could just as well keep them all in a cardboard box and save a bundle on the electricity bill, but as I most definitely prefer my milk in its fresh, liquid form, the magic coolant device is considered to be a necessity right underneath air conditioning and thus I made quick work of scrambling to find a repair guy to come out and take a look at the thing.

For those of you waiting anxiously for the embarrassment factor, don’t worry – it’s right around the bend!

So cut to the chase – repair guy comes out as scheduled, I make special arrangements to be able to meet the guy at home when he arrives in the middle of the afternoon because really, who isn’t available for a 1:00pm – 5:00pm window on any given weekday, and low and behold, as one can only expect to happen when such hoops are jumped through in a state of fright and panic over the thought of having to pitch out a countless array of frozen treats … the refrigerator is working just fine and dandy. Temperatures are now back to running at their optimal range without so much as a minute hint that there was ever any danger, and all I can do is sheepishly write the man a check for his “troubles” while he schools me on how to close the refrigerator door properly…

“You just have to be real sure that there aren’t any freezer bags or anything breaking the seal on the door. You’ve got a lot of stuff in there, so something probably propped the door open just enough to start the defrost…” he explained surprisingly sympathetically, as if he encountered this ridiculous kind of situation with other fully grown men all the time. As I watched him walk out the door with my $98, nonetheless appreciative because he “cut me a deal” on what the normal charge for a house-call should’ve been, I still couldn’t help but wonder if he chuckled under his breath on the walk back to his truck, “Try a few less cartons of ice cream in that thing, tubby, and you won’t have a problem closing the freaking door…”

I know if I’d have been in his shoes, I couldn’t have resisted – hey, I’m only human!

Needless to say, a lesson was learned that day – one that I will pass along to my friends and family, my children and my children’s children – hopefully all without actually having to tell this embarrassing story over and over again in the process. And that lesson is this – don’t even bother calling the repair guy to come do anything at your house until you’ve searched the Internet and found enough evidence to ensure that the whole stupid thing isn’t your fault in the first place! It may seem like a panic-worthy situation at three o’clock in the morning, but ultimately you can buy an awful lot of Chunky Monkey for $98…

…nearly four cartons the last time I checked…