When my wife said it was time to clean the fridge, I considered running away to join the circus as the new assistant for lefty the lion tamer, or maybe the French Foreign Legion, or something really extreme like the Boy Scouts.
It’s not the contents of the fridge which terrify me. Sure, the fuzz on the cheese may be old enough to vote in some states and has achieved a low level of sentience normally associated with Political Strategists and the guy who designed the shrink-wrap packing on CDs. There’s also the vast array of unidentifiable foodstuffs which have been carefully preserved in individual containers. The margarine tub is particularly problematic because we’re no longer certain if it contains non-dairy spread or applesauce.
None of that is as terrifying as the thought of cleaning the outside of the fridge.
I’m not certain our fridge has an outside anymore. The sales brochure went on at great length about the textured, enameled surface; praising it with the kind of lyricism that used to be reserved for war heroes and scenes of exceptional beauty.
In all the world you’ll find no finer surface than the exterior of your Whirlwind Food Companion. Easy to clean and attractive, you may come to know that this appliance is more appealing than any other object in your house, including your mate and (if you have one) your Van Gogh.
I wasn’t that enamored with the fridge. I still find my wife more attractive — although it is harder to get magnets to stick to her. Which is probably why the outside of the refrigerator is covered with random pieces of paper and my wife isn’t.
The magnets themselves are a clue to the people we’ve been and the places we’ve seen.
Years ago, when our children were small and we were concerned that they might not be ready for college by the time they entered kindergarten, we bought a big bucket of magnetic letters. We assumed that the kids would see the letters on the fridge and spontaneously start spelling words. This theory failed when our oldest (then three) pushed the letters around and formed the words “crentyd bxds”. His younger brother did slightly better with “iopd”. (Clearly ahead of his time, he very nearly spelled iPod.)
A few years back the letters started disappearing. I suspect they fell off and the cat batted them under the nearest appliance. I’m afraid that if I ever move the stove, beneath it I’ll find a frightened collection of letters spelling out “Save Us”.
Now we’re down to two letters – Q and a broken A that looks like a crooked 4. There’s no good way to spell a message with those.
We’ve been replacing the letters with souvenir magnets from the places we’ve visited – Yellowstone, Zion’s National Park, Bryce Canyon, Hoover Dam, Mars, and Oz. To be honest I don’t remember touring those last two, but the magnets wouldn’t lie.
Another side of the fridge is covered with promotional magnets for plumbing services, carpet cleaning services, pizza delivery services, drain cleaning services and towing companies. It looks like we just tore out a random section of the yellow pages and stuck it up as a decoration.
The magnets aren’t just there to look nice, though. They serve the vital function of keeping a forest’s-worth of random paper in place.
A quick survey of the fridge gives you some idea of what’s going on in our life. One whole section is devoted to keeping track of the kids’ work school. Papers, projects, awards and other bits of random educational effluvia are posted in layers. Digging through them is a stroll down memory lane.
The top layer might be a pre-calculus quiz or an essay on Antigone or some other academic challenge which makes me glad I’m not in high school anymore. Below that are pages from a fifth-grade report about New Jersey (Embarrassed to Be Martha Stewart’s Home State, But Okay With The Whole Sopranos Thing!) At the bottom are faded crayon drawings featuring figures that might be our family or the prototype drawings for the Burning Man festival.
Higher on the fridge, over the freezer, we keep expired coupons that we clipped with good intentions, but never used. Some of them date from previous presidential administrations and at least one from another geologic era. Yet we keep them, as if they are some kind of talisman that protects the food in the fridge from evil spirits.
Nearby is a collection of faded cartoons clipped from the newspaper and various magazines. Time hasn’t been kind to these; the paper has yellowed and the ink has faded turning the characters into Dorian Grey-like parodies of themselves. Dennis the Menace appears to be morphing into Mr. Wilson and the Foxtrot kids all look like creepy sideshow midgets. Oddly, Blondie and Dagwood don’t seem that changed by the ordeal.
Newspaper articles have faded as well. According to one that I found at the bottom of a stack of outdated fast food coupons, our youngest son took top honors at the science fair … or was given a Nobel prize. The letters are a little unclear. Either way, the clipping is a treasured memory.
Which is the whole reason the fridge looks the way it does and why I’m incapable of actually cleaning it off. Every piece of paper triggers some memory and I can’t possibly throw it out. So I examine it, place it back reverently and look for a bigger magnet to hold it in place. Does anyone know where I can get a good deal on one of those electromagnets like they use in junk yards?
