Lost in the brush at home improvement stores

When changing the filter for our refrigerator water dispenser recently, I noticed the dreadful condition of the unit’s condenser coils. A dense coat of dusty fur covered the coils and was most likely the cause of a recent downturn in cooling performance.

I’m not afraid to tackle a home maintenance project, but I am afraid of permanently damaging a major appliance, so I took to the Internet to learn of proper cleaning technique.
As with most projects, success was predicated on having the proper tools. In this instance, it was the refrigerator coil brush. I became determined to procure one that evening before the fur could grow impenetrable.

Not familiar with the availability of the refrigerator coil brush, I bypassed nearby general stores and headed directly to a home improvement center, where surely such items would be a staple.

My reasoning skills and tracking instincts, so acute in other areas of life, are rendered useless in a big box store of the home improvement variety. I can’t locate anything. So I knew that with darkness drawing near, the most prudent course of action would be to seek out an associate for assistance. One was spotted immediately.

Unfortunately, she was unfamiliar with the refrigerator coil brush, both in function and proximity. A quick phone call and I was dispatched to a part of the store where the brush was not located, then directed to another part of the store where the brush could not be found. With each failed discovery, I could sense the brush growing nearer.

After a third associate registered confusion over my request, I whipped out my smartphone to offer proof of its existence. On the store’s website, the brush was listed for sale at $8.98, a price I would later learn was exorbitant.

Satisfied that I wasn’t madly pursuing some sort of home maintenance Yeti, the associate tracked the item electronically on his computer. His findings were crushing. The refrigerator coil brush had become extinct, at least in that particular store.

Waving off his offer to custom order the brush, I sped off across the street where another expansive home improvement center was located, confident that I would soon locate the elusive prey.

I briefly held hope that I could find the brush on my own and trekked deep into the thick of the appliance department. There, other refrigerator-related items were bountiful, but no brush. And no associate. Dashed!

With panic setting in, I made my way to the service desk at the front of the store. Events would soon take a disturbing turn.

I was told that the appliance associate had just sought refuge in the restroom, but I was invited to “hang out” near the appliances and await his return. This did not strike me as exemplary service. It also introduced into the customer/associate relationship a level of familiarity that felt wrong. It’s one thing to call home and be told that mom can’t talk because she’s in the shower, quite another to hear that someone will be with you as soon as they’re finished with more pressing matters, to euphemize the situation.

Yet return to the appliance department I did. They had me a bit over the barrel, what with my refrigerator coils being so frightfully soiled. After 10 minutes, however, I surrendered.
Perhaps my concern should have been with the associate and whatever difficulties he may have been enduring, but I left the store brushless and decidedly out of sorts.

Dejected, I returned home where I tried not to think of the furry coils and the hazard they might be creating.

And that’s when I spotted it. In the utility room, crouched furtively between the washing machine and the wall, barely visible, was a refrigerator coil brush. “You didn’t know we had that?” said my wife, who knows where everything is.