Grandma’s refrigerator had just one door. When you opened the door, inside was the refrigerator, with a freezer compartment on top. Then came the refrigerator with two doors—one for the freezer on top, and a separate door for the refrigerator compartment below.

Then came the side by side—a freezer on the left, the refrigerator on the right, each with its own door. A few years back, a different design became the rage—a double door refrigerator with a freezer drawer on the bottom of the unit.

I was enamored with the design—especially with the wide deli drawer inside. Unfortunately, they were pretty pricy, yet I still drooled whenever we strolled through the appliance department.  But then, a few years back, one of our friends who is in the appliance business, offered us a great deal on one, and who was I to resist?

I loved the fridge at first. When the deli drawer continually jammed, I considered the price we had paid, so I didn’t complain. And then the ice maker went out, something our friend warned might happen—those models back then had ice maker issues—again I didn’t complain. Instead we purchased a nifty countertop ice maker.

But what really did not work out for our lifestyle was the freezer drawer. Oh, it held a lot, but for households like us, who purchase a lot of frozen meat and fish, it made the drawer very heavy. I worried about my 89-year-old mother being home alone, opening the drawer to get ice, and then having it jam on her—something it occasionally did with us. Would she be able to fix it on her own?

Recently, we decided it was time to get a new refrigerator and retire our old one to the garage. Since we got such a terrific deal on the other one, it wasn’t as financially painful as it might have been—plus there were some great appliance sales going on.

So here comes the rest of my public service announcement.

My husband, Don, researched refrigerators before we went shopping, so we knew what brand we wanted. Unfortunately, the research failed to mention the following two things.

The first is the water dispenser. When looking at refrigerators at the store, they typically are not hooked up. Therefore, a customer does not have the opportunity to try it out.

I remember asking the salesman if the water dispenser had one of those features where you set the glass on the little shelf to fill up and it automatically turns off when full. He didn’t know. What he also did not know, in the brand we had asked him about, you did not set the glass on the little shelf in the door when getting water—only when getting ice.

When Don first used the water dispenser he got quite a surprise. He set the empty glass on the little shelf in the door—like we had done for all our previous refrigerators in the past with water dispensers—and he pushed the lever with the water icon.

Water squirted all over him—and the floor. You see, in this model, the water comes out of the door, as you can see in the photograph. In our previous refrigerators, if the glass overflowed, or you pulled the glass away too soon, the water was captured in the little tray on the shelf. Not so with this one. There is nothing to catch the water except the glass you are holding.

When our daughter came to visit with her family, that was one of the first things I showed them how to use. I didn’t want their family soaking our kitchen floor—or their shirts—the first time they went to get a glass of water. And at our house, unfortunately all the drinking water comes out of the refrigerator. She found the design strangely bizarre.  The moral of all this, take a closer look at the water and ice dispenser. See where the water and ice are actually dispensed.


The next unexpected thing I discovered about our new refrigerator—its door fronts will not hold a magnet. I learned that this morning when I tried to attach a list to the front of the refrigerator, and the list—along with the magnet—fell to the ground. You can use a magnet on the side of the refrigerator, just not on the front.

Don says he doesn’t like things hanging all over the refrigerator, so he doesn’t have a problem with this unexpected quirk. But, if you are someone who does like to use magnets to hang things on the front of the refrigerator, I suggest you take a kitchen magnet with you the next time you are appliance shopping.

I like our new refrigerator, in spite of the fact I have to hold the glass when it fills with water, and I can no longer hang my grandkid’s artwork on its front. I’m still happy with the purchase.

However, I wonder…had I been aware of those two things, would I have selected another model?

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