Do you mean, the hip, sound of today?
Exactly.
A dried out door hinge. Why do you ask?
With a sampler, you could make music with it.
You should see all the songs I used my old refrigerator on.
Do you prefer electric or acoustic fridge?
Is that a Sears fridge?
Yes.
This is the story of a refrigerator and what it has come to stand for in the life of the woman who bought it.
Her name is Shira Cohen. She lives in Temple Terrace. Eight years ago, long before she left New York, she bought a refrigerator from Sears. It cost $1,000.
She was going to school then and what money she earned came from rooms she rented to students at a local college. She sent Sears what she could, but it was rarely the minimum payment.
If you have ever gotten jammed up with a credit card company, you know what happened to Shira Cohen. Interest on the unpaid balance pushed the bill up and up and up.
Now, eight years after she bought a refrigerator for a house she no longer owns in a state she no longer lives in, she owes nearly $4,300. This is true even though in the past two years, she estimated she paid $1,583 -- certainly more than the cost of that blasted refrigerator.
Last spring she asked for a break from Sears: Couldn't they forgive the balance? Sears refused. She had to pay 80 percent of the balance. That was more than $3,400. But at least they stopped calling and hounding her for the money.
"I can't afford to pay them anymore," she said last week.
All she has is an $835 monthly Social Security check.
She lives in the twilight so many older people live in. Retirement does not mean the end of work. It means the anxious pursuit of any work available, to keep the lights on, the medicine in the bathroom cabinet.
Although Shira Cohen looks younger, she is 67. She has little saved for retirement. Years ago, she cashed out what pension she had as a schoolteacher. She didn't worry then. She didn't plan for the future.
"I thought I'd always have a teaching job," she said.
That was why she came to Tampa six years ago. The school district is one of the biggest in the country. Surely, there would be jobs. There were: teaching in a charter school, teaching English as a second language, working as a librarian.
But the jobs always ended. Since June she has applied for another dozen jobs. She sits. She waits. She frets her age is working against her. "Nothing is clear yet."
In the meantime, she sometimes has to borrow from friends or hope her only son will help out. "It's very hard," she said in a voice so soft it was difficult to hear.
In another breath, though, she smiled and raised her arms, palms up. She looked heavenward. "Maybe He has something in store for me."
Maybe so. It may not cover all her needs, but this month, she begins a job teaching Hebrew at a synagogue. In the meantime, she is a substitute teacher in the Hillsborough schools, jumping from school to school, circumstance to circumstance, hoping for better, a miracle, even.
Not long ago, she signed up for something called A Course in Miracles, which promises those who study carefully a renewed sense of personal satisfaction with their lives. Shira Cohen's face lights up when she talks about it. You can understand.
She was hoping I could reach Sears. She thought they would listen to me. I tried a couple of times. Sears said they'd get back to me. They didn't.
It has been years since Shira Cohen laid eyes on that refrigerator, but it might as well be smack in the middle of the living room of her apartment. That's how much space, in worry and frustration, it has taken in her life. Those bills are a constant reminder of Shira Cohen's vulnerability, her aloneness in a world where something as small as an envelope in the afternoon mail can deliver the kind of news that keeps you up all night.
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