I guess it was some time after the Maytag repairman died of loneliness that the company manufactured our refrigerator. We’ve had one of his brethren out to our place three or four times in the past four years.

A couple of times, the refrigerator side had quit staying refrigerated and there’s just something about warm milk and melted margarine that frankly seems a bit unappetizing to my spoiled tastes. Pun intended. The cold-water dispenser only dispenses cold water in the winter but that turns out to be a malfunction of design, rather than performance.

According to the manual, it’s only intended to cool the water to fifty degrees, which hardly qualifies as “chilled” to my expectations on a hot summer day. I can’t help wondering if they actually designed it that way or re-wrote the manual rather than replacing several thousand defective cooling units. In any case, I’m sure the company’s market researchers realized that labeling the device a “Tepid Water Dispenser” would have a chilling effect on customer demand and so they decided we’d rather have them lie to us and call it a “Cold Water Dispenser.” They knew we weren’t going to read the manual before we purchased the refrigerator and it never occurred to me to ask the salesperson at Lowes, “What is the actual temperature of the water that emanates from the Cold Water Dispenser during the summer months at our latitude?” Next time, it will.

The current issue is from a rather opposite direction; lately we’ve been finding frozen foods in our refrigerated section. Carrots, salad and one other thing of greater concern: the little jar of jalapeno jam that we brought back from New Braunfels, Texas. For the first month of its residence here at our place, the jam had the same jalapeno-ey green color that it had in Texas. Now, it’s sort of a milky looking color, somewhat resembling a lumpy mayo-mustard concoction. But… and in this case it’s a very important little conjunction… it still tastes like the stuff we loved in Texas!

There are things in which appearance is not only an important point, it’s the whole point. Art, hairstyles and portraits come to mind. In others, it’s not quite as crucial. Fortunately for me, that includes Randa’s devotion to me. Admittedly, she does like the fact that I bathe regularly, comb my hair and usually keep my beard trimmed. Even more fortunately, I know that God does not judge us based on appearances.

We might have more in common with a jar of jalapeno jam than we realize.

H. Arnett
2/11/15