We Lost Our Ability to Mend
A friend was recently complaining about having to buy a new $2000 fridge, how his old one only lasted 8 years, and how everything is junk nowadays. He described the symptoms to me [gradual loss of cooling capability, soft ice cream, then melting ice cubes] and I told him I solved the same problem 2 years ago and his was almost surely a broken defrost heater leading to a totally iced up [therefore no airflow] cooling unit, that troubleshooting would take him 15 minutes to confirm, and if that was it, it was a $20 90-minute repair (most of which is waiting for the freezer to defrost).<p>He looked at me like I had 3 heads to even consider a fridge repair and a week or so later sent me a pic of his new, $2000 fridge in place. I tried.