Some people gots it easy. Me? I gotta fix these damn refrigerators all day. And it ain't easy, buddy, believe you me. Fixing refrigerators, or "fridges" as we call 'em in the business, is probably the hardest and most dangerous job on the planet. Don't believe me? Well, then, you obviously don't know much, no offense intended. Me? I can tell you a thing or two about fridges. Oh yeah, I got stories.
One time me and Bernie Parker get a call out to Woodland Highmount or Highland Woodmount or some such bullshit suburban neighborhood. Dispatch says there's a Kenmore out there won't hold magnets no more. Refrigerator demagnetization is getting to be a real problem with some of these new jobbies. They don't make them like they used to. So, anyway, we get out there and this real snooty lady tells us through the front screen to go around the side. We do and she lets us in the side door into the kitchen. She was a pretty lady, real pretty, but she was too good for us ask her. She just points us to the fridge and goes to sit at the table in the breakfast nook like she's gonna keep an eye on us. They all got nooks out in the suburbs. Go figure.
Anyways, there we were, looking at this black Kenmore jobbie. On the floor all around it were Chinese menus, finger-painted pictures, school lunch calendars, and assorted refrigerator magnets. We seen this before. So Bernie goes back to the van gets the remagnetizer. While he's hooking the phase hose up to the hot water in the sink I plug the thing in and put on the plating helmet. He pushes the starter button and I crank the feed for the grelm wand. Next things he's stomping the valve pedals to control pressure and I'm laying into the Kenmore with the wand, making sure not to cross the grelm lines (I'm no greenhorn.) Ice woman's sittin' in the nook, no idea what she's lookin' at.
That's when it happens. I hear this thud and look over. Bernie's laying out cold in the floor. The dumbass got his bootlace caught up in the pedal and tripped right onto his bean on the Mexican tile. He's gone. So here I am, a live grelm wand in my hands and pressure building up in the chamber with no one to work the valves. I know I'm in trouble when I start to hear that high-pitched whine, you know, that remagnetizer chambers make when they're about to blow.
"Bernie," I says, almost crossing the grelm lines when I turn. "Bernie get up, dammit."
Bernie ain't movin'.
"Bernie, you worthless piece of shit, get up!"
Nothing. He's out cold.
I look over at the fridge. The damn thing is starting to glow. Over-magnetized. Not good. I look over at ice woman in the nook. "You might want to get outta here lady," I said. "This don't look good."
She just rolls her eyes and pushes back her chair. "I'm not paying for this," she huffs, and she walks over to the remagnetizer, kicks the emergency pressure vent and slaps the kill switch, like she's been magnetizing all her life or something. It was sexy as hell, but I felt like a dumbass standing there with my wand in my hand as it went dead.
"Yeah, sure lady," I stammered. "No charge. Sure."
"And you'll be replacing my refrigerator," she added, glaring daggers at me.
"You'll have to talk to dispatch about that," I said. "I'm just a fridge jockey."
She rolled her eyes again and went to sit back in the nook. I finally woke up Bernie and we packed up and got the hell outta there. That was the closest we ever came to a grelm collapse. Pretty scary shit, this job. I got a million stories, though. A million. You work this job long enough and you can't help but have stories.
Hello, friends. You got stories?
Love.
