Is Your Refrigerator Running?

Do you have a refrigerator?  Of course you do.  Now, what do you use your refrigerator for?  If you said, “To keep my food cold so it doesn’t spoil,” then you’d be wrong.  At least, you’d be wrong if you lived where I have been staying for the last week-Minnesota.  You see, these people up here use their refrigerators for just the opposite purpose.  Whereas most of the civilized world needs the refrigerator because leaving food outside would cause it to spoil, ’sotans need their refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.  That’s right, the refrigerator for these people is a way to keep food from becoming ice.  This point was brought home to me again this winter as my wife’s family moved everything out of the refrigerator in the garage and put it on the floor of basement because, as they put it, “It’s just too cold out there for the refrigerator.  If we leave stuff in the refrigerator, it’ll freeze.”  What?  Try wrapping your head around that one.  I think I’ll make that one of my criteria for where I won’t live: If there is ever a need for your refrigerator to play the same role as your microwave (keeping food warm), then I don’t want to live there.