I’m not focusing too well this morning. Yesterday, Friday, was an odd day. Firstly, I was working a full day with the day job due to having a half-day earlier in the week for an appointment. Second, the Little Man who had moved out (sort-of) for his new job was back up with us for the weekend in order to deal with his next-to-last (there’s a word for that, but darned if I can recall it in my pre-coffee state) class for welding. He’ll be back up for the same thing next weekend before being officially done with this semester, and next semester he is supposed to have two online-only classes he can do while working. Third… we had a new refrigerator delivered. The old one had literally been old (dear sweet and fluffy lord, when did made in the eighties become old?), and the compressor started to make ‘funny noises’ so rather than waiting for it to completely give up the ghost, we took advantage of Black Week (what? It’s not just Friday any longer!) sales to buy the one we’d wanted since we got the house.

Problem the first: the doors in this house are poorly thought-out. The external door is 36″ wide, but hung so that it can’t be fully opened out. That had to come off it’s hinges. The old refrigerator we had disassembled to get into the house, but the professional removers were able to get it out without needing to do that. The new one, though, came in the house in pieces. Problem the second: the water line to the refrigerator hadn’t been touched since… who knows when. We hadn’t used it with the old fridge since it was a stop-gap buy and we’d messed up the wiring to the ice maker getting it in the house ourselves. The professionals took one look at the old copper line and expressed doubts most politely but firmly.

The first problem was largely solved by the time they took their leave. Largely, but not completely, as there was a sensor that had become misplaced in the new fridge. I was baffled for a bit – I’m used to old-school appliances with a physical pressure switch that registers ‘door closed, light off, compressor can run’ versus ‘door open, light on, compressor off’ and this appliance didn’t have any such thing. With the Little Man home and excited over a Project, he took the top bits apart, found the sensor, pressed it back in place and voila, the refrigerator bit was chilling.

The second problem was… complex. Here’s where I start talking about the writing tie-in. Plotting a novel could be as easy as ‘bought the fridge, scheduled delivery, they brought it in, plugged it in, and then wiped down the stainless free of fingerprints (they did not!)’ and that would be boring to the reader. Thrilling to me the homemaker, having a perfectly smooth transition from old and busted to new and sleek. Readers, on the other hand…

Readers want the try-fail sequence, with the character growth. They don’t necessarily want the stink of solder, the swearing when that fails, the three trips to different stores for parts, the ultimate replacement of the copper pipe with vinyl… they want to hear how our Hero spent hours puzzling over first one fail, then another, and finally, when the dishwasher couldn’t be pulled out to snake the new line behind it (because it was installed before the last layer of flooring was done, and frankly I’m glad to learn that now than when we are trying to replace the dishwasher), to discover that the weird narrow cabinet next to it has a false floor and with a long-necked pliers, he can… just… barely… push the line into the under-sink cabinet. Where he will hook it up to the line, open the line and an hour later when he hears his mother start shouting, return to the connection while she fusses about finally calling the plumbers and this time, the connection doesn’t fail. Success! Plumbing level: Dry Floor unlocked!

I checked, first thing this morning. It’s dry under the sink, it’s dry under the new fridge. The water dispenser dispenses, there is ice in the tray the maker uses. It was an epic, multi-climactic saga. But finally, I think, it’s reached a conclusion. Well. Almost. You see, the new refrigerator with it’s nifty internal ice maker that dispenses into a tray where you can scoop it out? That makes a Noise. And the cats are deeply suspicious of this Noise. Toast is currently in high alert from her perch on my desk, with radar ears trained on the intruder through open doorway between office and kitchen. As a homemaker, I really don’t want a sequel to yesterday’s saga. As a writer, I’ll point out that this is where you’d hook that on to the first book…