well you can buy a new one

First off, don't EVER put any part of a wooden clarinet in the fridge or freezer. You can and will cause cracks.

Secondly, get in the habit of putting cork grease on the cork every so often and make sure you are wiping excess grease off every time you apply it.

Not to raise a stink but, he did put cork grease on the cork. He specifically mentioned that. (Warning some sarcasm follows -it's NOT intended to be mean).

Secondly, although I agree you should not put your clarinet in the refrigerator on a regular basis, there are times it can be beneficial. To say to never put it in there for any length of time is like saying, "Don't play the clarinet outside in the winter months if you live in the Midwest or East. If you live in my cousins house don't play it inside either. Don't play it in Alaska, or Russia. Don't ever fly with your clarinet, don't ever ship your clarinet.Don't. don't. don't.

And, in fact, LeBlancs Director of Performance Education is very clear and specific that, "cracking can occur if part of the wood absorbs moisture and expands while other sections are too dry; the difference in pressure may cause a crack. The same can be said of temperature. If you blow hot air through a cold instrument, the temperature difference can cause the bore to expand while the outside remains cold and contracted. Either way, the pressure on the wood is inconsistent, and cracking is possible." So just blowing warm air into your wooden clarinet can result in cracking.

In a perfect world you should take the instrument to a repair technician. But I have yet to meet a muscian who didn't try to fix it themselves first. So, if you are going to try please be as gentle as possible, please.

A refrigerator will only, ever slowly, cool the instrument; 10-30 minutes is okay. I would rather my clarinet be in the refrigerator for 20 minutes than have some big brute twist and torque, and wiggle things back and forth as hard as they can. And when I do repairs I do use some serious force, but it comes with experience. And let me tell you experience is expensive. The reason good technicians know how much force they can use before something breaks, is because we've done that.

Oh, and don't ever get your clarinet re padded - some technicians use a torch some use a heat gun (it's not good for your wooden clarinet either).

hehe. something about opening up a fridge and seeing a clarinet in there makes me laugh.
(mmm delicious:D)

My barrel gets stuck a lot when I play for a long time (like all day). It seems like the extra water causes suction. I got in the habit of taking off the barrel and spilling it out every once in awhile, and I haven't had a problem since.