Suddenly, I found myself in the market for a new fridge, and let me tell you, the world of refrigeration is a more interesting place than you might realize. There was a silver lining, however this chaotic incident provided an opportunity to upgrade several aspects of my kitchen into which I’d previously put little thought-including the refrigerator.Īfter the water damage incident, my old fridge, a perfectly serviceable but uninspired stainless steel model, sat unplugged and at room temperature for months as my kitchen was fully demolished (the water damage inspectors found asbestos in the walls-surprise!), and eventually, it filled with a beautiful ecosystem of assorted forms of fuzzy, rapidly growing mold. I then spent the next three months living in a hotel while an insurance nightmare unfolded, eventually culminating in my entire kitchen being stripped to the studs and, finally, replaced. I’ll spare you the full list, but the first series of minor tragedies began as follows: 1) While visiting my family for Thanksgiving, I sprained my ankle jumping in a beautiful pile of crunchy (and apparently slippery) fall leaves 2) as a result, I had to delay my long drive back to Los Angeles, where I live and 3) as a result of that, I was unable to intervene in a timely fashion when my upstairs neighbor’s sink overflowed with dirty water, which seeped into the walls of my apartment and caused A Shitload of Water Damage™ almost immediately.

Back in November, I experienced a Lemony Snicket-worthy series of unfortunate events.

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