When I was planning my move to my new-to-me condo, I thought I had everything covered. That should have been my first clue that there would be a wrinkle or two, knowing as I do that the universe doesn’t always conform to my plans.

I had arranged to have about a month in which I would live in my rental apartment while I had some renovations done to the condo I was buying. The new flooring would come in week 1, I would go to the Fringe Festival in week 2, painters would come in week 3, and the appliances would arrive in week 4. Perfect, right?

Well, it was going quite well until week 4. The microwave and dishwasher were installed with no problem, and the stove arrived on a different day, again with no issues. The fridge, though, turned out to have the door swinging in the wrong direction. It was a right-swing instead of a left-swing.

As soon as they had it in place, one of the installers said “The door swings the wrong way,” and the three of us just stood there for a few minutes and contemplated the truth of that statement. At first I said, “It’ll be ok,” and I signed the delivery notice. Then, after they had left taking the old fridge with them, I thought about it some more and changed my mind.

I quickly went outside to their truck and caught them before they left. With apologies, I explained that I had had a change of heart. They called their boss who explained that this particular fridge could not have the door changed so they would have to bring it in and he would order a left-swing door fridge to replace it. In my naivety, I thought this would only take a few days, but it turns out the universe has inflicted supply chain issues upon us all.

So, the day before my move, I went out and bought a chest cooler hoping, optimistically, that it would tide me over until the new fridge arrived. In my optimism I had told the fridge installers that I would not need the old fridge back. I didn’t need it. Hah! The gods laugh at human arrogance.

I put my few freezer items and some other fridge perishables into the chest cooler, and hoped for the best. The next few days were filled with moving and unpacking and although I did buy some ice to put in the cooler, I probably left that too late. Anyway, that ice melted amazingly quickly and I ended up with a lot of soggy food and water. Most of the food went in the trash, but I was left with a few usable things including shortening, eggs, and cream cheese.

Today, it occurred to me that I should find a use for as much of the fridge remains as I could and so I did an online search for what I could cook using the ingredients at hand. Lo and behold, Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars! They include flour, eggs, cheesecake, chocolate chips, and shortening, all of which I have, and they are in the oven as I write.

The gods may be laughing at me, but Google and I are laughing right back. However, if you read the recipe you will see that it says at the end, “Cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Cover and store in the refrigerator.” I think I’ll just pretend I didn’t see that last sentence.

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Edit to add: Don’t leave your cheesecake at room temperature for more than a few hours. It becomes unsafe. I learned this the hard way.