Life is like a Frigidaire...

Have you ever noticed how cleaning out the fridge is a pretty close metaphor for taking stock of your life?

First you delay. You open the door, shake your head at the mess inside, close it and walk away resolved to “do something about that” on another day. And then promptly forget about it as you plop down to watch E.R.

Every time you open the door you remember that you need to “do something about that” and maybe you feel a bit guiltier every day it doesn’t happen.

Finally, you decide that today is the day. You open the door. And you stand there. For a while. Where to start? Your hand hovers in the door section, over the myriad bottles of old dressing, jams, condiments and other odds and ends. Nope, too complicated. Have no idea when any of these things were opened and they are going to require the sniff test.

Or you glance down to the crisper drawers. Nope, I already know what’s in there. And it’s not pretty.

So you dig into the fridge shelves, since that is where things are kept but not kept too long. You toss long-languishing Tupperware filled with good intentions of leftovers onto the counter. These are the easy items, you can see into them to quickly identify what’s inside. And you know you can dump the old contents, sterilize with a hot soapy wash, and refill with new good intentions of “I’m sure I’ll enjoy that for lunch.” You pull out the food that still has some life to it and start to scrub down the shelves. There will undoubtedly be some crumbs and sticky spots to wipe up. Sometimes you have a chisel a bit on whatever it is/was.

Then you turn to the drawers. Easy enough to toss the cello bags of liquefied zucchini, brown lettuce and fruit that disintegrates in your hand. Gross?, Yes. Difficult to sort through? No. Then you pull out the drawers for a scrub and you wonder how in the hell all that… that… crap got in there. Dirt, bits of onion skin, crumbs. You aren’t a messy person. So who let all that detritus pile up? Oh yea. You did. In fact, you know darn well that these little treasures of decomp have been in there for weeks. But you just kept buying new produce to cover up the old.

Now comes the door shelves. NOT THE DOOR! Yep, the door. Now you have to reckon with the many bottles and jars that hide their contents behind murky contents, labels and lids. You have to guess just when did you open that bottle of Szechwan stir fry sauce and how long has it been in there. Hmm, that was the night… Hay-zeus! That was a long time ago! Toss. This jam is still good. Why don’t I use this honey mustard more often, it’s tasty. Do pickles go bad? Their pickled, but is that like, forever? What’s this? “sniff” OH GOOD LORD I’M GONNA YARF. “Hey honey, come smell this!!!”

Sometimes, but not always, when you think you are just about done you discover some random puddle at the very bottom of the fridge. You puzzle over the red sticky goop, or heaven forbid, blue fuzzy goop. It’s hard to get at. And you’re tempted to just stick the drawers back in and be on your way. BUT NOW YOU KNOW IT’S THERE AND ITS GOING TO HAUNT YOU!!! So you pull on the rubber gloves, contemplate a hazard mask, and advance with the Clorex spray.

In the end, it’s all worth the effort, and you vow to keep on top of it so that it doesn’t get so bad next time. Your hubby takes a look at the newly freshened fridge and likes what he sees. So you reach gently for him, smile, lean in and whisper in his ear, “you get to scrape all the moldy Tupperware into the garbage.”