Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Confession: My fridge looks like it belongs to a hoarder

I finally cleaned out the fridge today.  This is a big deal.  I decided it was high time I did something about the state my fridge was in after my sister-in-law did nothing to hide her horror when she opened the door on the weekend.  She's always known that I'm a slacker when it comes to cleaning out the fridge, but as she rummaged around trying to find a spot for something she finally exclaimed, "That's it!  I'm coming over this week and we're cleaning out your fridge!  This is ridiculous!"

I was suddenly reminded of an episode of Hoarders where this lady wouldn't throw anything out of her fridge and it was so full of rotting food that she couldn't shut the door and her family had to do an intervention...well, you get the idea.  It's not that I have some unconscious need to keep the crap that's in there.  As a matter of fact, if some magic cleaning fairy came one night and cleaned it out for me I would be ridiculously happy.  I guess it's just laziness.  That and the fact that I have better things to do (ahem, rationalization?).

It's not as though I never clean it out.  It just doesn't get done until:
     a) there's no more room to put things,
     b) something smells bad, or
     c) I put my hand into the crisper drawer and pull it out dripping with sludge from an unknown source.

Anyway, it's a problem and one I'm not proud of.  It's humiliating actually.  Because, aside from the fridge, my house is pretty clean.  Sure, I have my issues with stashing clutter and putting off laundry the same as most people, but dirty I am not.  So there was no way in hell I was going to have my sister-in-law coming over to do this - I decided then and there that I would clean out the fridge today, come hell or high water (plus, me sticking my finger through a liquefied english cucumber pretty much sealed the deal).

Among the treasures in this stainless steel chest were:
  • 3 expired sour cream containers, one unopened
  • 2 nearly empty jars of salsa
  • 5 jars of jam (count 'em, FIVE - I kept one, the rest weren't quite empty but were low enough that you couldn't get the jam out without getting all sticky)
  • 3 empty mustard containers
  • 4 containers of unidentifiable leftovers
  • 2 nearly full bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream - one from last Christmas and one from the year before (you got it - that would have been 2008)
  • 4 leftover chunks of butter, all expired
  • 2 half-empty jars of Cheez-Whiz (I don't even remember buying or eating Cheez-Whiz)
  • 3 english cucumbers - all at different stages of decomposition.
  • about 50 of those little plum and soya sauces that come with chinese take-out
THE SHAME.

I wonder what the garbage man will think when he sees my recycling bin.

But it's all done - squeaky clean.  And the process was surprisingly cathartic.  I'm going to seriously try not to let this happen again.  Seriously.

No comments:

Post a Comment