S Sorrensen
My place. Tuesday, 5pm
I have done many things in my life that have given me exquisite pleasure. Some I can even mention.
Like, I rode a little motorbike up an impossibly steep gravel road to a golden stupa atop a mountain to celebrate my birthday by looking down on magical Mandalay sprawled alongside the mighty Irrawaddy River.
Like, I held my newborn son in my hands, then held his daughter, and understood unconditional love.
Like, I have been loved by people who deserved better, and loved them back, a better person.
And I have owned things that have given me great pleasure.
Like, I had a 1969 Les Paul Gibson Gold Top that taught me to play electric guitar, until, in a moment of broken-hearted madness, I sold it.
Like, I had a BMW R60 motorcycle of the same vintage that showed me just how beautiful a clear day on a North Coast back road can be.
Like, I have a Superman money box. When you drop in a coin, S-man’s fist raises, his cape blows in a battery-operated wind, and he says, ‘I will save you!’ (I also have a statue of Jesus but it doesn’t do anything…)
But today I did something that I’ve never done before, something so exciting I can hardly sit still: I bought an electric fridge. Made in China.
Now I own something really special.
Every few moments I feel the need to open it and touch the bottle of organic pinot grigio just to feel it chilling. And, when I do open the fridge door, a light comes on. So I can see the pinot grigio. Even when it’s night time. How cool is that?
Okay, for some of you, a fridge is a fridge and so what’s the big deal. I’ve been in your houses and seen how you take your Electroluxes and Samsungs for granted. Taking complete dinners out of them and putting dinner remains back in, your giant fridges hold whole cartons of beer, half pigs, mysterious packages in dark corners, enough condiments to sink a deli, and use-by-dates from last century.
I have looked at your fancy fridges with envy. Some are bigger than my bathroom. Some have two doors. Some have a thingy that delivers crushed ice on demand. (Perfect for sunset vodka and tonics.) Some fridges tell you to shut the bloody door if you stand there too long, staring at row upon row of munchie choices.
You’ve probably owned heaps of electric fridges, and never given them a second thought. Your attention is taken by jobs and growth, superannuation, and why a dying reef seems to be no big deal. But when there’s a blackout and your half pig begins to thaw, then you think about the fridge. And electricity.
The thing is, I have never had an electric fridge at my shack under the cliffs, because fridges take a lot of electricity. And I make my own. (Electricity, that is. Not fridges.)
I would leave your house, with your massive fridge mumbling to itself as it makes ice cubes for your nightcap, and return to my shack under the cliffs with its little gas bar fridge, so small I had to use condensed milk. There was barely space for a bottle of sauvignon blanc. So, I converted to red wine.
But solar technology is getting cheaper by the day – despite the government’s commitment to death-by-warming – and I recently added two panels to the humble solar array on my shack’s roof.
And, with appliances becoming more efficient – Chinese manufacturers don’t need the I Ching to see a renewable-energy future – I am now free from fossil-fuelled cooling and have a bottle of pinot grigio being chilled by the sun. Bliss.
Next, an electric stove…
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