So we've had this issue in the apartment with our freezer. About two weeks ago, one of my housemates accosted me (okay, maybe that's too strong a word) in the kitchen while I was cooking and proceeded to ramble very, very quickly in Swabian about some problem with our freezer. What I took away: ice. doesn't close. problem. I was naturally a little concused so I asked her to show me what was wrong (after all...it's a freezer...you get a little bit of ice in there). Apparently, if you don't push extra hard, our freezer door doesn't close all the way, air get's in, and we get copious amounts of ice. This is also apparently an issue. My housemate opened the door and tossed it closed, said something even more incomprehensible, and then pushed on it to 'really close it'. Did I see the difference? No. Did I nod like a miraculously enlighted person with a sudden look of comprehension on my face? Of course. We'd have to clean it, she told me, but didn't know how. Fast forward two weeks and 50% of the apartment has again gone home for the weekend (down from the usual 75%, this feels rather crowded). Another housemate came across me in the kitchen making pancakes and explained to me that she had taken her drawer out of the freezer and cleaned it off, but had been unsuccessful at removing the ice. I asked if she thought warm water might do the trick. She said it hadn't. She said she'd also tried to use a knife and failed. I told her I'd look at it after brunch (hello, I waned my pancakes) and that we'd 'figure something out'.
As promised, I finished my food, cleaned everything up, and had a look into our freezer. It's basically two full drawers on top with one half drawer underneath, and dividers like oven racks. The problem is that each divider is made up of TWO oven rack-style metal grids with a little under 1/4" in between. This is great, as you can imagine, when something get's stuck inside it (ie. ice). Oh wait...I have that backwards...it's the world's most inconvenient thing. Her drawer already having been removed, I fished all of our frozen stuff out of the middle drawer, which I share with the latest addition to our apartment, grabbed my measuring cup with a spout, and poured some hot water over the dividers that were caked with slushy, opaque ice. Lo and behold, some of it melted. After what my housemate had said about her lack of success, I wanted to feel like a genius, but seriously, isn't it sort of just the law of the world that hot water melts ice? I proceeded to spend an hour slowly pouring warm water and prying ice away with a knife (I also found this rather successful, so I'm not sure what she was doing). Using the empty drawer to catch water below, I still wound up with water all over the floor, but not as much as I could have. All of the ice isn't completely gone, but it looks a whooooole lot better than it did.
I would be lying if I didn't say that fixing the freezer gave me a whole lot of, "In your face," satisfaction. My friend Josh and I have an ongoing joke about ingenious American solutions. I think it started with some culinary issue....our quiche maybe?..and a solution I came up with to find a way around a problem. Being here with a bunch of international students, we often just blame things/attribute things to nationality, perhaps as a way of reclaiming stereotypes in a hilariously positive way? Unclear, but regardless, we're fans. So I was a little sad that I couldn't share the moment of glory and my 'ingenuity' with anyone (though I'm still not convinced it was that). I mean, really, was it actually that much of a brilliant solution? People who know me probably know that I'm a big fan of 'if there's a will, there's a way'. There has to be some way to get around any problem, so my philosophy tends to be to at least try to just fiddle with a bunch of different ideas until something works. Is this a skill I acquired from my parents? Girl Scouts? My old coach Brian would probably say it's a characteristic exacerbated by being at Wesleyan, a place where independent problem solving is encouraged. Either way, I can't wait to see the looks I get when my housemates see the newly-fixed fridge. Sure, you may think I'm that crazy American who can't understand a damn thing you say in Swabish (how about I try speaking English full-speed with a Texas accent and we'll see how YOU do), who is strange because I don't fill the sink up when I do dishes (sorry if it weirds me out to have food particles floating around in water I'm using to sterilize my dishware and utensils), or who has any other tendencies that just 'aren't German', but you're very welcome for fixing your freezer that you seemed helpless to do anything about.
Even though Josh doesn't read this, I'll say it anyway---there's another 'ingenius American solution' for you ;)
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