Creative Non-fiction The Contents of Your Fridge

Have you ever gone into someone else’s fridge without asking permission, perhaps without even thinking about it, your hand reflexively on the door and next thing you’re staring at a collection of items on the shelves? Did you feel guilty? Like you’d committed a social faux pas? Why? What’s taboo about a fridge?

Going into someone’s fridge implies trust, implies intimacy. It’s like going up to someone at a cocktail party and unbuttoning the first button of a shirt. You. Just. Don’t. Unless. Uh-huh. Fridges can tell you a lot about a person, maybe things he/she doesn’t want you to know. Now that I’ve got you thinking, now that you’re paranoid, please don’t jump up and rush to your fridge and start cleaning it out, just sit there, calm down and listen, I’m getting to my story.

The contents of the fridge are like the contents of the mind. The icebox is a superego, ready for emergencies with ice cubes and vodka, a spare loaf of bread, dispassionate pizza, soup stock, batteries. In the centre of the fridge, the ego and id duke it out for structure, the ego arguing for careful groupings of sensible foods, milk, eggs, cheese, meats in the proper bins and at the proper temperatures, expiry dates duly noted, the id arguing for visibility and ease of access, everything Saran wrapped, two minutes to the microwave and let’s eat.

The fridge/ego is easily overwhelmed by change, even something as mundane as a dinner party. Regular tenants are shoved out of the way to accomodate newcomers. Awkward cakes whose clear plastic toppers are just too tall for the lower shelves demand to have the milk move. Massive turkeys pull rank on the vegetable crisper, innumerable jars of gherkins and pimientos and pearl onions, like out of towners at a wedding, jockey for seats on the side shelves. But parties end. And things get to normal. You hope.

Not if your id has any say. Bang in the middle of this, the chocolate cake and wine and splurges of take-out that you want to eat first but resolve to eat last. And keep opening the fridge to peek at. Aggghhh! The irrationals. The things you save far too long. The sauce packets from the take-out that is long gone. Little packets of vinegar and ketchup and soy sauce that make you look like a kleptomaniac, and you feel like you should add on an explanatory card saying that no, the take-out people actually put in too many packages. Meanwhile the ego staples, the ketchup and pickles and Hoisin sauce that never gets used, and the capers for that great salmon pizza you meant to make but got so hungry that you ate the lox with the toasted bagel and cream cheese last night when you were supposed to be doing this assignment.

At this point, your roommate comes sleepily out to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. Scowl at him. Mentally force him back to his room. How are you supposed to get anything written with nighttime marauders on the loose. Jeez. It’s true, though, most people don’t live alone and they share fridges. Why is this? Why not separate fridges? Hey, why not his-and-hers fridges?

I don’t know a single couple who keep their underwear in the same drawer once they’re, you know, seriously in a relationship or, take this, married. Getting your own drawer is so important it figures in movies as an entire scene. Remember Demi Moore? About Last Night? No? What's wrong with you?

People get their own drawers, at least they should get their own shelf in the fridge. But it doesn't happen. Except perhaps in some college dorm with an obsessive compulsive on the loose. No, in most places there’s only one fridge and the shelves ain’t reserved, it is come as you are, a free for all. Nobody gets a particular shelf, not even Paul Martin, people rearrange things all the time.

There may be some sort of evolved logic to placement, the fact that Johnny can’t reach the juice container on the top shelf and may fall off a chair trying to get it so we’ll put the juice boxes on the side. And we never use that mustard except when Uncle Bob is visiting, so it goes at the back. (Does it have an expiry date? Gee, I never checked, I guess you’re right, how old is it anyway, maybe we should throw it out.) But are placement issues ever discussed? As pillow talk? As family meetings? (Okay, Darren, you’re taking minutes, the first order of business today is deciding the milk should move to the left. Pay attention, Darren, this is strategy, someday you’ll be negotiating a corner office yourself!)

Simple, direct communication. Does it ever happen? No. Indirect, murky messages, subterfuge, excuses. Why is the bacon at the back? Were you hiding it? You don’t want me to eat it, do you? All because I didn’t clean the grease of the stove last Sunday? Who gets the last piece of Brownie? Is this a test of willpower? Who put the bread on the third shelf? Everyone knows it goes on the top shelf, on the right. Well, it did in my family. You didn't put the bread in the fridge? You left it on the counter? Didn't it go moldy? Hmmm, I don't know about you any more.

Fridges. Very interesting. So, next time you’re at a party, hey maybe even a TWS 2005 party, check out the fridge. You might learn something.