Speaking of refrigerators…
…and we certainly have been speaking of refrigerators lately—
I read my new fridge’s manual yesterday. I was looking for instructions on how to integrate some little egg holders that came with it: where do they go? What is the little metal gizmo that came in the bag with them?
Alas, the manual was mum on the subject. But it had a lot to say to the people who apparently like to use their refrigerators in unusual ways limited only by the human imagination.
Here are some quotes. I’m going to assume that this first one is directed at children:
“Do not swing from the door or bottle racks on the door.”
And this was really puzzling at first:
“Do not use electrical appliances inside the refrigerator.”
But it was explained—sort of—by this one:
“Do not use a hair dryer to dry the inside of the refrigerator.”
And then we have this:
“Do not place lighted candles in the refrigerator…”
WTF? Lighted candles??? But the rest of the sentence was quite a bit more—illuminating:
“…to remove odors.”
Okay, so somewhere there’s a block of people who put lighted candles in their fridges in an attempt to remove odors. But does that instruction mean it’s okay to place lighted candles in the refrigerator to do something other than remove odors? Inquiring minds want to know.
Then there’s:
“Do not spray volatile materials such as insecticide on any surface of the appliance.”
The need has never come up in my entire life, but I’ll take it under advisement.
Then we have some more practical advice:
“Food consumed daily should be placed on the front part of the shelves. This can avoid unnecessary delays in door opening as well as expiration of the storage period because you forgot to eat it.”
I do often forget to eat food and it goes bad, which makes me very sad. But it’s not food I ordinarily eat on a daily basis and have forgotten to put in the front.
And did you know?:
“Do not store foods with high moisture content in contact with the inner walls. Otherwise the food may freeze to the walls.”
I must say that in all my years of using a refrigerator I’ve never faced that problem, and I bet neither have you.
More advice:
“Some vegetables, for example onion, garlic, ginger, water chestnut and other prismatic foods, can be stored for long periods at normal temperature. There is no need to store them in the refrigerator.”
Prismatic foods? Whaaa?? I looked it up online, and there is no such thing.
Also, there’s a troubleshooting part of the manual in which one of the entries is “Refrigerator is dirty.” The solution they propose is that you clean it. Thank you, manual writers!
A brief and PC list of all the things that morons have done in refrigerators.
As they say, “You can’t make anything fool proof because fools are the most inventive people in the world.”
“Prismatic foods? Whaaa?? I looked it up online, and there is no such thing.”
Made in China with an educated, but not EnglishFluent, Chinese to English translator in the Manual prep division.
Neo’s refrigerator is made by Haier, a Chinese company.
It’s widely believed that the Chinese have no sense of humor, but this is false (https://tinyurl.com/ybkat4ef). Unfortunately, it is true that the Chinese are notorious plagiarists and violators of intellectual property rights.
In this case, the person in charge of writing the refrigerator manual at Haier was too lazy to do original work. Also, he didn’t understand that Monty Python was a comedy group, so he badly translated one of their sketches into Chinese and printed it as a refrigerator manual. For American consumers, the manual was then badly translated back into English.
Prismatic vegetable are lit from within by a rainbow of diversity. They’re too cool to require refrigeration.
Correct on 2 counts Vanderleun.
“I do often forget to eat food and it goes bad, which makes me very sad. But it’s not food I ordinarily eat on a daily basis and have forgotten to put in the front.” — Neo
I found some great stickers at The Container Store: they come in seven rolls, already labeled (in different colors) with the days of the week. You add the date to the bottom half and stick them on your left-overs container.
A quick way to see what had better be for lunch very soon.
On Prismatic Foods, I found these two excerpts from the same book, but some biologist will have to explain why they might refer to the food items listed in the manual.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCobAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=prismatic+foods&source=bl&ots=ZU0XIFM8T3&sig=3O8QWbNNGmq1bO0ErcPMo_eW_7c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4h9abg6HYAhXoslQKHVYoAfsQ6AEIPjAH#v=onepage&q=prismatic%20foods&f=false
and in other representatives of the liliaceous groups of plants 5 Much elongated prismatic crystals as they occur in Quillaja and in Iris fiorentina 6 Prismatic crystals very widely distributed in the plant kingdom 7 Elongated prismatic crystals 8 Twin crystals as they occur in Ulmus bark 9 Very large aggregate crystals very widely distributed in the vegetable kingdom 12 13 Very minute prismatic pyramidal crystals as they occur in Belladonna 14 Prismatic crystals as they occur in Hyoscyamus and in other plant groups
https://books.google.com/books?id=BCobAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=prismatic+foods&source=bl&ots=ZU0XIFM8T3&sig=3O8QWbNNGmq1bO0ErcPMo_eW_7c&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj4h9abg6HYAhXoslQKHVYoAfsQ6AEIPjAH#v=onepage&q=prismatic%20foods&f=false
Examine a section in water The perisperm is principally composed of large thin walled polygonal cells packed full of minute starch grains Among these cells numerous others may be distinguished by their yellowish oily contents These are oil cells They are characterised by the blood red colour they assume with concentrated sulphuric acid a reaction due to the piperine they contain which may occasionally be found in prismatic crystals embedded in the oily contents of the cells The perisperm cells that abut on the seed coats are smaller and contain aleurone grains
Cornflour is undoubtedly correct.
“Prismatic vegetable are lit from within by a rainbow of diversity. They’re too cool to require refrigeration.”
PS this post by Vanderleun should not be missed.
http://americandigest.org/wp/last-minute-shopping/
Merry Christmas to the Neo-Neocon Cons.
Thank you for identifying the brand.
R.
Hahahahaha
The Chinese have quite the talent for reverse engineering. It’s why Clinton sold all the US satellite and high altitude missile launch systems to the Chinese in return for favors.
Also why China has a Chinese made Ak 47.
Yes, the Chinese are great at reverse engineering refrigerators.
The Russians, on the other hand, never quite developed a knack for it.
I once went to a Russian hardware store. In the appliance section, stood one lonely refrigerator. I thought maybe it was a clever political comment on old Soviet-era food shortages; but no, the joke was on me.
When I opened the refrigerator door, there was a smaller refrigerator inside. When I opened that one, there was an even smaller one inside that one, and so on. Finally, when I opened the smallest refrigerator door, there was nothing inside but a punchline.
Very funny. (no sarc) Bravo for reading the manual. But it brought to mind some interesting and useless factoids.
The very old refrigs. use ammonia as a working medium or refrigerant. Lots of factory workers were poisoned, burned, or blown-up making those things. Then somebody like Dupont invented Freon (a CFC) which was completely inert and safe, but destroys the ozone layer of earth’s atmosphere. So Dupont and others invented various HCFC and HFC compounds that still damaged the ozone layer, just a whole lot less.
While those newer compounds were being created and tested, the German refrig. industry decided they were going to use iso-butane, which is a variant of the stuff in a Bic cigarette lighter.
I have no idea what is being used by who right now 25 years later, and it is extremely unlikely that refrigerant leaks out without smashing the unit, but … If the refrigerant is iso-butane it really would be a bad idea to light candles or run electric hair dryers inside.
I looked it up. Haier says most of their refrigs. use R134A an HFC compound. Zero ozone damage, but a little global warming potential.
“Prismatic foods”
Yep, a very poor translation from the Chinese.
“leng” or more preciously “leng leng” (repeating the word) means chilly or frosty.
The word can also be used to mean something having many sides (kind of like frost – frozen dew which has many angles). More specifically, think of our English word “crystal” which is used for cut glass (not unlike a prism) but is also used to describe snow or ice sometimes.
There is no doubt in my mind that someone – whose first language is NOT English – looked up the Chinese word “leng” in a dictionary and saw “chilly,” “crystal,” and “prism” or “prismatic” – not realizing that they could not substitute one for the other.
Hopefully, their engineering department is better than their translation department.
Is it possible that a candle would be put into a refrigerator as a night light, in case the bulb that goes on when you open the door burns out?