Nothing says "4th of July Weekend" like a dead refrigerator. Especially when it's brand new.

I had a new refrigerator delivered a week or so ago. Now, I need a new one again. The first step in the disaster that is discovering you have a faulty brand new refrigerator is panic. Removing as much food from the fridge as you can as soon as you discover the problem...throwing out most of it, of course, and throwing the rest in the stand-alone freezer for now.

Which leads to step two: anger. Anger that a company (already on its last legs, by the way) would sell you a bad product after years of reliable service. Anger that this problem just so happened to arise on a summer holiday weekend. Anger that you can't get the problem solved until after the holiday.

The third step (in my case) is anxiety. Anxiety over the thought the replacement, when it finally arrives, might not turn out any better and you'll be back to square one.

The fourth step is to knuckle down and find a solution, to spend a few bucks to get a mini-fridge to hold the absolute necessities (which, because of step one, you had to re-buy) until the new fridge arrives.

I know this isn't the worst thing that could happen on a holiday weekend--but darn it, it's pretty disastrous. The good news is, since the refrigerator was new, it's still under warranty and won't cost anything to replace--except for a little sanity. So, what was your biggest holiday disaster and how did you handle it? Weigh in below in the comments.

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