Does that come with an ice maker?

Well, you all read about my mattress-buying adventures yesterday. Today was appliance day. Tony and I awoke today fully motivated to go out and spend another $3000 or so on more stuff for the new house and decided that instead of buying a pony, which is what I wanted, we'd get a fridge.

Like all things Coutsoftides, this couldn't be simple. Several weeks ago, we'd decided that we wanted a refrigerator that was all fridge and an upright freezer for the garage, instead of the crazy vertical freezer of death we have now. I don't know who invented the side-by-side freezer, but they had neither children nor frozen pizza. So, we did some comparison shopping online and discovered that freezerless fridges, as they are called, are a special order item at nearly every appliance store and we would need to give ourselves plenty of lead time on purchasing one.

So we waited a month.

Fast-forward to today. We sprang from bed at about 8-ish, full of enthusiasm for another day of shopping. Today's breakfast was a Burger King eat in the car affair, to save time and calories. Then, it was off to the Home Depot, which opens at 6 a.m. even on a Sunday. First we browsed the lawn mowers, disagreeing viciously on whether we were going to purchase an electric push mower or a giant diesel-engine lawn tractor for our half-acre lot. Tony can't even mow due to heinous grass allergies, so I'm not sure why he even gets a vote. Unable to resolve that battle without our marriage counselor, we headed into light fixtures to check out ceiling fans. We need three immediately for the house, or else we will stumble around in the half-light in three of the most important rooms - the sunroom, the bonus room and the master bedroom. None of these rooms have any lights at all at this point, which I think is hilarious given the fact that other rooms have in excess of 20,000 watts of recessed lighting each, but we don't want to live in permanent twilight, so we need to find these fans.

Let me just tell you that shopping for ceiling fans is an exercise in looking really really stupid. You stand on the floor, gazing into the air with your mouth open, pointing and grunting at fans set 30 feet up in the air in the industrial warehouse space of Home Depot.

We found nothing we liked. Well, I actually found several I liked, and Tony found several he liked, but we found nothing upon which we could agree. Shocking, I know. How my incredibly cultured, European husband could have the taste of a set director for pornographic movies in the 70's, I don't know. It baffles me. If it has fake stone, orange upholstery, shag carpet or a disco ball, he's into it. So, we'll have to pick up the ceiling fan debate at a future date. Oh, and then find someone qualified to install them, because that sure ain't us. Anything more complicated than hanging a picture (and sometimes that) requires calling in professionals.

When we finally made it to appliances, I was astounded at how small the selection on the floor appeared. Maybe I haven't been in an appliance store in a while. Maybe when I was in one before, I was much smaller. But I remember them having MORE APPLIANCES! I don't want to make a $3,000 decision based on three floor models and a picture in a catalog. The reason I came to the store instead of buying online was so that I could touch and feel the appliances, see all the features, push the buttons, stuff a cat inside and see if it fits, etc.

Add to that the fact that I couldn't find anyone to help us, and I was getting a little tense. My solution in these situations is to send Tony to find someone. He wanders five feet from me, looks in both directions and returns to tell me that there is no one working and that maybe we should just go to the next place on our list. My solution at that point is to start loudly complaining about how I'm going to just go spend my money at a competitor's store and see if anyone is desperate enough for my cash to come help. Today, Randy showed up.

Now, Randy wasn't a regular appliance guy. He's a kitchen and bath guy. But he was willing to help us figure out how to spend our appliance budget. We browsed the ridiculously small selection in the store and when none of those were even the same BRAND as the one I wanted, we got out the catalog. Great. However, we managed to find the exorbitantly priced washer and dryer I wanted (Hey - Ladies Home Journal said they were the best!) and charged them right up. It has gotten to the point where I just know going in that I'm going to choose the most expensive option for whatever decision I'm making and I should just accept it.

However, Home Depot did not carry the type of fridge I wanted, so we had to head elsewhere. Our options were to go to the mall and head to Sears or stay the hell away from the mall and go to Best Buy. I think you know which way we went.

Sitting outside Best Buy waiting for them to open was like a scene from "Night of the Living Dead." People of all ages and geek levels staggered from their cars into the bright sunlight to group up around the door and shift uncomfortably from foot to foot, pawing through the weekly circular and gnawing on body parts. I have no idea if there was some great sale going on or if Sunday morning is just the time everyone likes to go to Best Buy, but it was eerie. When the doors finally did open, we waited for the dust to clear before exiting the car and heading inside.

Here the dedicated appliance guy was working and had full knowledge of the type of fridge and freezer we wanted, was willing to price-match anyone AND gave us 18 months same as cash. I'm still considering marrying him, even if he was 74 years old and a little weird. At the very least, I was willing to kiss him for saving us some money on the whole process. Which, by the way, only took about 15 minutes. What astounds me is how Tony and I can spend such incredible amounts of money so quickly. What used to take me weeks to earn can slide out of my checking account in seconds, without even a second thought. And when you make purchases like this, you don't even have anything to show for it, besides a receipt and maybe a computer printout, which makes it even worse. If I were to buy thousands of dollars of shoes, for instance, I would leave the store laden with purchases, feeling victorious and not a little bit flush. When you can stuff the evidence of your excess in your purse, it just isn't the same.

At noon on the dot, we were back in the car and headed home, blissful at having checked a few more things off the epic to-do list we have for the new house and having added two more deliveries to the day after we close. Full-scale military invasions have had fewer moving parts than my move-in day. I have appliances, furniture, mattresses, closet people, handymen, electronics people, cable guys and moving trucks all arriving, depositing their goods and then leaving on the same day. I envision the day ending with my mattress in the garage, my freezer in the bedroom and my washer and dryer on the lawn. Which would only be appropriate, as we are moving to Kentucky. I've even considered inviting my mom to come, because if there were ever a woman prepared to launch a military invasion, it is Fairy Starling. She'll be in the front yard with her ubiquitous clipboard and stopwatch (the same ones she used to take on family vacations to make sure we were properly enriched) cracking a bullwhip and calling out insults to the delivery men. I plan to videotape it and sell it as the sequel to "Ben-Hur."

But I have six weeks to M-Day and undoubtedly need to go spend more money.