Friday, August 24, 2012

Small Refrigerators are Not Cool






As kitchens go, we have a pretty compact one.  Not teeny tiny, but smaller than most, yet I suppose bigger than some, as well.

It has all the basics though and Z can certainly make magic in there. It’s just not what you’d call an “Eat In” kitchen.

I mean you can eat in it…but you have to stand up, unless you pull up one of the small stools we have in there in case we’re lazy and don’t feel like hauling the food off into the sunroom, where we normally eat.

The stools are nice since you can sit at the small counter and watch the small TV while you eat your small lunch, if so inclined.

Since we have a pretty compact kitchen it stands to reason that we’d have a small refrigerator too.

It stands to reason, just like we stand to eat, because if it wasn’t a small refrigerator, it would basically be a small kitchen with frost free refrigerated walls.  Plus the light would be going off and on all day…I think. 

Who can be sure.

I bring this up because finding anything in our refrigerator is like playing with Mr. Rubik’s Cube, whom I’m pretty sure must have had a small kitchen and refrigerator, himself.



There’s also a variation of that Jenga game where if you pull out the one wrong piece of the pile everything comes tumbling down…or in this case out…as in on your foot out.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that I’m not very good at this game.


And it also probably comes as no surprise to you that Z is.

I’ll be sorting through the various freezer items in search of an ice cream bar…past the bagels, the hot dog rolls from 1977, Herman Melville’s whale fillets and other sundry items when I’ll yell up the stairs to Z…”We’re out of ice cream bars!”

Z will reply…”No we’re not…I just bought a new box yesterday!”

To which I will also reply....in the sweetest of voices…”Well, I must be an idiot then, cuz I can’t find anything in this gosh durn freezer…there’s no ice cream bars here!!!!”

To which Z will answer, right over my shoulder, where she has now miraculously re-appeared from upstairs... “Yes you are…and if I look in there and find it in two seconds, I’m going to show you a new way of enjoying those  ice cream bar.”

Which to me…I don’t know…doesn’t sound pleasant.

Well, I’m sure you’ve already guessed how this goes…Z peeks into the frozen box of mystery, slides the frozen pig head to one side, moves that missing pair of sox I’d been looking for…and there are the elusive ice cream bars…right where they were supposed to be, next to that left over slice of pineapple pizza I ordered the night M*A*S*H went off the air.

Okay…so maybe it’s not entirely the refrigerator’s fault. Maybe I do like to hang on to my leftovers a little too long…but when’s the last time you had a classic Ring Ding, circa 1967, when a Ring Ding was a Ring Ding.

The main section of the refrigerator is bigger of course, but just as difficult to maneuver through because it’s located below the freezer…which means you have to play a variation of Limbo to get through this area…you know…“How low can you go?”

The answer, in a nut shell, which of course we don’t refrigerate, is “Not very”…not very low at all.

As you can imagine, this lends itself to its own unique set of difficulties, such as the time I came home one afternoon to find that Z’s back had given out once again while she was looking for the cream cheese.

I found her hunched over a container of mango salsa with her head stuck in the celery crisper.

Naturally I found this whole scene alarming since I usually find her hunched over the yogurt with her head in the chesse keeper.

Apparently what had happened was on her way to grab the cream cheese, Z was distracted by a jar of gherkins, which have been known to have that effect on Z, especially in confined spaces, that threw off her balance, just a smidge, which led to her back twisting, ever so slightly, and that’s all it took.

So once she was stuck in there, Z decided to make the best of a bad situation, and decided that some celery would be a nice compliment to the salsa and pickles…and yada yada yada….you know the rest

What?

You think I can make stuff like this up?

Well, yeah…I can…but you never know, because it just goes to show that a small refrigerator is no laughing matter.

Apparently….










2 comments:

  1. And then there are the folks who store half-empty glasses of water, cola, or bloody Marys in places where they are sure to be tipped over by someone searching for the bleu cheese, which is on a back shelf of the refrigerator. I say to them: "@#%^&*." Don't you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know exactly what you mean. But I think "@#%^&*” is a little harsh. I usually just say “&^*@$%”. It gets the message across without being to judgmental or personal….

      Delete

Retort to the Retort -

“Is there anybody alive out there…”