My back didn't handle today as well as it did the last few days. I went for a half hour walk and reclined, as opposed to sit, to avoid putting so much pressure on my tailbone, but I'm back on my little pill to make it through the night. It probably didn't help I had an hours worth of dishes to wash and I was spontaneously desired to reorganize the kitchen....just a little.
The current apartment I'm in only has what I call a dorm size fridge. It's the fridge style with the freezer inside it which means you can put a couple of ice trays and that's about it. Granted, it is slightly bigger than the dorm fridge I had in college, but still...
Anyway, I'd been planning and had arranged with the landlord to purchase a used, adult-size fridge for the apartment. But I've learned a new cultural norm about Mexico.
THEY ONLY HAVE FRIDGE DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE LEFT!!
No, seriously. I'm not kidding. Too bad if your fridge space is against the wall on the left side of the kitchen (like mine is). You'll just have to rake your knuckles against the wall every time you want to open the door and you'll have to open it all the way just to reach inside. Then you'll have to take one item out at a time to walk it around the fridge to put it on the counter. I seriously am still shocked. I thought it was just standard that fridges came with the possibility to change which side the door opens. They have had that option all my life. And I thought people just knew that. Even the appliance store workers in Mexico have never heard of the possibility of switching doors, let alone the regular population. It's a true unsolved mystery.
Anyway, I started looking for fridges that opened from the right side first. There's plenty of those normally: not in Mexico. Once I realized fridges that open from the right are an anomaly in Mexico, I thought, "Well, that's not a big deal. I'll just change the fridge doors to open from the right." Hah!
The fridges aren't actually manufactured to be able to do that here either.
I finally found what I thought was the perfect fridge. It was an adult, large size, good brand fridge with the predrilled holes to change out the doors in the pictures. So I made an appointment with the owners and was preparing to buy a fridge. I got to the house. The fridge was fantastic. It was huge! And even better, it was clean!! I was stoked. I checked the extra holes in the middle between the freezer and the fridge, yes. I checked for the pivot hole in the fridge door, yes. And then I got on my tip toes to check the very top for the three holes to change the bracket to hold the freezer door on to the box. Nope. No holes. Not a one. They weren't covered or painted over. They'd never been put in by the manufacturer.
I was devastated.
I looked for another week and eventually gave up. The next however many months I'm in this apartment will be lived in a constant state of fear that I can't fit something I buy in the fridge or freezer and having to unpackage everything to make it fit and moving things around every single day to make it all work.
Because I thought I was going to have an adult size fridge I decided to go ahead and prepare the kitchen for it. There was a 4 tier bookshelf I was using for paper towels, fruit, extra bottles, oil, etc. that was in the fridge space next to my dorm fridge. The two are so small they fit side-by-side in the same space for an adult fridge.
In preparation, I removed the bookshelf to the living room and relocalized all my bottles to various awkward locations.
With the reality setting in that I will not have an adult size fridge, I decided to go ahead and put the bookshelf back in the kitchen. There are only 3 upper cabinets and 1 lower so I'm super cramped for space. I cleaned the bookshelf of the items I'd collected in the living room and put it in a new location in the kitchen and restocked it with my fruit and bottles and napkins and paper towels. I can see my kitchen counters again and I can completely close the kitchen cabinets too!
I will definitely miss having a full size, adult fridge for the foreseeable future, but it is really nice to have some organization back in my kitchen.
The even better news, is that if a right-side opening fridge falls in my lap for the right price, I have space for it because I relocated the bookshelf. It's always good to keep your options open! But I'm not longer fridge hunting. I've spent too many hours on it already and know it's a needle in a hay stack here to find what I'm looking for so it's time to move on to other priorities.
Here's to organized kitchens, more counter space, kitchen cabinets that close, and refrigerators that open from the right side!!
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| The bright yellow 'cabinetless' wall with interesting African(?) art decor . (I rent). |
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