Those who know me well will be shocked by this story, which is why I’m providing the picture to the left.  For those who don’t know me well let me just say that I’m the opposite of a DIM (do-it-myselfer).  In fact my idea of the ideal home project involves me doing nothing more strenuous than dialing several numbers to get quotes from the local contractors or handymen.  Keep that in mind as you read the rest of this.

Last week I arose early and stumbled into the kitchen to make coffee and when I got there I found our three year old Whirlpool refrigerator making a kind of whining noise that was loud enough to wake the dead.  Usually my first move in these situations is to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.  When that doesn’t work I generally try to beat the crap out of the offending machinery to see if I can knock some sense into it.  If that doesn’t work I usually just give up, wait for it to annoy Celeste and then let her try to fix it or figure out who to call to fix it.  This time I surprised even myself and got online to see if I could figure out what the problem might be. As a result I found a message board for DIYers (DIY being “do-it-yourself”) that had a posting that covered my exact problem.  One of the DIY dudes was even nice enough to provide a link to the RepairClinic website where I could find replacement parts for any number of home appliances.

With the information I gleaned online I went back to our fridge and found the small motor for our ice maker.  I removed the motor, fiddled with it a bit and then put it back in the hopes that I might have “re-set” it so that it would stop making the whining noise.  For about one hour after I put the motor back in it returned to functioning quietly, but as soon as it dropped a new load of ice in the bin it started whining even louder than it had before, which meant we needed to order a new motor.  I went back to the site, ordered the new motor and waited for delivery.

Some time yesterday the motor was delivered and this morning I replaced the old motor with our newly arrived gem.  Miraculously it took only a couple of minutes (99% of the time I can take any “simple” home project and turn it into an week-long marathon) and so far it is functioning perfectly.  Best of all I didn’t even come close to electrocuting myself.

I was flying high for about five minutes until I realized that the other part of our ice maker that needed replacing, a blade that snapped almost two years ago, would not be replaced today because I’d ordered the wrong part.  Now that’s more like it.