Got Refrigeration?

I had an odd flashback to my childhood at breakfast time yesterday.

When I was a little kid, I ate cereal every morning. I don't say "cold cereal," however, because rarely was it actually "cold." My dad, who was always up at the crack of dawn, drinking coffee and reading at the kitchen table, would get out the milk and leave it on the counter throughout the morning so he didn't have to keep taking it out of the fridge every time he filled his coffee cup. We're talking like an hour or so, not long enough for the milk to go bad or anything, but by the time I got up and poured my cereal, the milk had gone from frosty cold to just below room temperature. Eventually, I switched to toast, but in my elementary school years, just-below-room-temperature cereal was a breakfast time staple.

Yesterday, I sat down with a bowl of Grape Nuts (one of my favorites from the olden days), and at first bite, I was taken back 20 years -- the milk was kind of warm. Even though my dad is now three states away and my milk choice is now soy, I couldn't help looking to see if there was a coffee cup and a Clive Cussler book sitting around somewhere.

As it turns out, my dad had not come for a surprise visit -- there's just something wrong with my fridge. My husband turned down the temperature, but today, everything is still just a little warmer than it should be, so we figure we're either in for an annoying repair, or a new fridge.

Obviously, I'd rather go for whatever is more cost effective, but I wouldn't mind getting a new fridge -- the other one is pretty grubby, and this way, I wouldn't have to scrub it.