There was a squeaking noise in the apartment today.
I told Ingrid I thought it might be a mouse. (Our apartment is shitty with mice and possibly some kind of biting insect? I don't know, there was a lot of "not our fault" clauses in the lease about bedbugs; I was assured those are a mere formality in Philadelphia.) She scoffed and suggested it was coming from outside. Perhaps someone was test driving cat toys.
The noise continued, periodically attracting the attention of Lennie, the dog who is only a dog when it suits her. She was jamming her nose in the crack under the dishwasher, but that didn't seem likely. We had a previous incident where a mouse crawled under our refrigerator and died. We discovered this after the stench of soaked (by condensation) and cooked (by the heat of the fridge compressor) mouse filled the apartment. Not just the kitchen, mind you. The whole apartment.
The noise continued. I was not getting used to it, as I had hoped might happen, and then later on I would pull the fridge out and check for mouse carcasses before they became mouse air fresheners. I was feeling bad for the mouse. It wasn't his fault there's an old, shittily maintained apartment building full of food and crevices to hide in. He's just playing the hand he's dealt. So, I decide to do something about it.
I move the fridge out of its space between the counter and the wall. They made the space X inches wide to accommodate the X-0.01 inch fridge. It screams and scrapes every time you move it, and can only move an inch or two before it jams in its space. It's a pain in the dick to deal with, but the squeaking continues even as I'm wiggling this damn appliance out of the way.
Once the fridge is moved, you need to remove a back panel. I have not brought any tools, so I have to ask Ingrid for them. The dog is real fucking interested in what's going on now: her food and water are over there, and the squeaking continues, and if she can be a pain in the ass in any given situation, she's right there. I get the back panel removed and try to get my head craned into the now-empty space so I can see back behind there.
It's empty.
The squeaking is not coming from the base of the fridge, as I suspected. It's coming from beneath the counter, immediately to the left of the fridge... under the dishwasher, like Lennie thought. Well, fuck, this was a lot of work for no goddamn reason. Let me just put the fridge back where it goes and then pull out the dishwasher.
While I'm putting the fridge back, there's a burst of sparks from underneath it and the lights go out.
I think I killed the refrigerator. At 11:15 PM on the Saturday of a Jewish holiday weekend (the landlords are Jewish). While it is full of frozen goods. After a week when we found out my job is not going to last nearly as long as promised.
And that squeaking is still going.
--11:38 PM, EDT, 9/30/17, Philadelphia, PA, sometimes you the Louisville Slugger / sometimes you the ball
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