Home Depot Shopper Gets Asked By 3 Men If She Needs Help Loading New Refrigerator In Car—She ‘Flexes’ On Them. But Then It Backfires

Getting a new appliance can be exciting. You finally have the feature you’ve long needed or traded in for a modern model. What’s not always so fun is the logistics required to get a large, heavy item from the store and into your home.

One Home Depot shopper said she was offered help by multiple people, but here’s why she refused to take it.

Need Help? No, Thank You

In a viral video with more than 1.6 million views, content creator Jaqueline Maldo (@jmthehost) was standing outside a Home Depot with a new refrigerator in a box in front of the trunk of her car.

“Got asked by 3 men if I needed help, had to flex real quick,” the text overlay reads.

Maldo pulls the refrigerator to the open trunk and tilts it into the trunk. She then pushes the appliance through the opening and into the car by herself.

“Never needed a man I guess,” she wrote in the caption.

Viewers were more focused on why the offers for help bothered her so much and how she transported it.

‘Damned If We Do’

Several commenters were confused by Maldo’s insistence on not accepting help from a man.

“Yall get mad if men offer to help & yall get mad if they dont,” one commenter wrote.

“Damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” a person said. Another chimed in, “Men ask = bad. Men dont ask = bad.”

Some viewers noticed a more practical problem—the fridge’s position.

“They offered to help because they figured you’d load it wrong, which you did. Never load a refrigerator on its side,” another said.

“For all the: you loaded it wrong. How would you have loaded it in her car as it seems like her car doesn’t have the head room,” they wrote.

How Should You Load Refrigerator In Car?

Keeping a refrigerator upright is the safest option. But the idea that a refrigerator must never be transported on its side isn’t fully accurate, Home Depot notes.

It’s said that a refrigerator shouldn’t travel on its back or side because oil can move into the cooling lines, potentially restricting the system or interfering with cooling once the compressor starts again. It can also shift refrigerant or place stress on parts that were not designed to support the refrigerator’s weight in that position.

However, Home Depot says it’s fine to lay it on its side for a short trip, just make sure to rest it on the side opposite the compressor lines. Hire A Helper notes that top-freezers and some standalone side-by-side refrigerators can generally travel on their sides. French-door, bottom-freezer, and built-in models should usually remain upright.

If a refrigerator has traveled horizontally, it should not be plugged in immediately. Home Depot recommends leaving it upright for up to 24 hours and, as a general rule, resting it for approximately twice as long as it spent on its side. HireAHelper recommends at least matching the time it was horizontal while also checking the manufacturer’s model-specific minimum.

There is also the lifting itself. Home Depot estimates that refrigerators weigh between 200 and 400 pounds on average and describes moving one as a two-person job.

BroBible reached out to Maldo via email and Instagram direct message and to Home Depot via email for comment. We’ll be sure to update this if either responds.