He's a real cute monkey, with skin the colour of mocha and dark, curly, springy hair that both men and women openly admire. He's very handy, helpful, and sweet. He's even a fantastic cook, especially when cooking his Native Tunisian dishes.But sometimes... his Monkiness really takes over. Example: a few days ago, the thermometer of Vancouver climbed to amongst the highest temperatures ever. Like, 33degrees Celcius but "feels like 38". Witness the Witch, lying on our kitchen/lounge/office floor, two fans at maximum power blowing directly at her, in pain due to a long-standing ailment which even two Oxycodones don't diminish. Pan over to the Monkey, who had just come home from purchasing a "Swamp Cooler" for the over-heated Witch. (Word from the Wiser: unless you live in a literal desert, a swamp cooler is unlikely to do anything too useful - stick with the aircon. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Kitchen, so they say... in our case, it was much cooler than the Bedroom of Direct Westerly Sun.) ANYWAY...
The Monkey, in his ever-caring and helpful manner, decided to chip away at some of the ice that had engulfed our wretched, old-school, circa 1970's freezer in order to make the Swamp Cooler water really cold. The freezer, annoyingly, is inside the actual fridge, and not with separate doors, like the fridges of the last 40 or so years. The Witch warned him, not just once: don't chip at the ice. You'll break the fridge. We'll have to pay for it if we break it. Don't hit the freon. The Monkey promised to be very careful.
Well, first the Monkey took out a jar candle which the Witch had put in there in order to freeze the wax and make it easier to extract, so that she could use the pretty jar for other purposes, like filling it with quinoa, or tiny mirror pieces for mosaic-making. He, on the other hand, attempted to remove the wax by HAMMERING on the bottom of the jar. So much for that one.
Then, he thought he'd remove the tray beneath the ice box, I'm not sure for what reason, but didn't think to remove the large jug of Freshly Brewed Iced Tea that skimmed the bottom of the tray, that the Witch had lovingly made to drink during the Hotter-than-Hell Heatwave. The Witch awoke from her pharmaceutical-induced stupor to find herself lying on the Shores of the Lake of Iced Tea. Poor Monkey. That was one STICKY mess to wipe up, especially under the supervision of the unhappy, shrieking Witch, whom he couldn't even banish to the bedroom for recovery.
The Monkey then resumed chipping and hacking and tapping until he got enough ice to fill the chamber of the Swamp Cooler. We closed the bedroom door and waited in anticipation to see how much it would cool our Oven-of-a-Bedroom. Well, about an hour later the Witch could not contain her curiousity and opened the door. Wafted with a humidity factor of probably about 90%, but just as hot as ever, the Witch really started losing her cool, to understate the matter. $200 just to make the bedroom into a sauna?! When the sauna-type effect already accompanied our every finger-twitch?! Our every blink of an eyelash? Our every sigh?
The Monkey hypothesized that the water in the cooler simply needed to be as cold as ice. And went back to the fridge for more. The Witch thought this really wasn't necessary, and told the Monkey that perhaps he should just take it easty, but the Monkey was on a Mission. Witchy-poo turned to the Internet for a Google search on 'optimizing Ice Air Cooler functionality'. And not a minute later, heard an unmistakeable "tap, tap, hiiiissssssss". She turned to the Monkey in Incredulity. The Monkey turned to her innocently and asked "Is that bad?"
Well. The Witch lost it. She howled, and she wailed, and she sobbed. She envisioned a week or two eating things that were warm, wilted, and rotting. She envisioned throwing good food out and waiting for her neighbours to come home from work or the local pub so she could get a cup of Almond Milk from their fridge.
The Monkey remained calm and insisted that he would clean up the mess, but that witnessing a Witch-in-Distress was hardly conducive to an action plan. At the Witch's suggestion, he called friends to borrow coolers, as our was locked in our storage space at an hour too late for retrieval. We filled the coolers to the max with our fridges' contents, and the Monkey turned to Craigslist for a solution.
The next day, when the Witch arrived home from work, she was Dazzled. She was Entranced. She was Overjoyed. Her heart pounded in Delight. There, in the place of our pathetic but serviceable old fridge with the door that didn't seal properly and the broken shelves and unhinged freezer door and the icebox that ate everything that could fit inside (which wasn't much), sat a gleaming, new-used fridge with a separate freezer and fridge with two separate doors.
The Witch gingerly yanked open the refrigerator door first - by golly, this door seal's magnets are strong!... and peered inside. Glory! She could SEE the contents of the fridge because there is a LIGHT INSIDE! She'd forgotten that such things were possible! Fridges sure have come a long way in 40 years! All the shelves sat perfectly on their perches, and there were several door shelves, and it was bigger than the last fridge, yet small enough to fit in the fridge alcove.
Then, the Grand Moment: the freezer. Barely containing her enthusiasm, she gingerly threw the door open to reveal a MUCH BIGGER freezer with a DOOR SHELF and which would never, ever, ever, need to be defrosted again!!! No more endless mundane cycles of emptying the fridge, boiling pots of water, sealing them inside the fridge/freezer, and mopping up the water that had sloshed over the sides of the precariously balanced ice tray en-route to the sink for dumping. Never, ever, EVER again!
And it was a beautiful day. A happy day. And the Witch wished that she had destroyed that first fridge 7 years ago when she first moved in. And the Monkey even got reimbursed by our landlord, who could no longer deny that 40 year-old decrepit fridges need replacing. Now, the Witch is newly inspired to go pick berries and put them in the freezer for a rainy day. To make enough food to freeze some for those nights where neither she nor the Monkey can face putting a sandwich together. To look in the fridge to see what elixirs she can concoct from the hodge-podge of left-over ingredients. Sometimes a Monkey's antics are a blessing in disguise!
(Monkey Peeler shown in picture: http://www.kitchencontraptions.com)
