Don’t open that Tupperware!

We could make our own penicillin with some of the contents of our fridge right now.    Show of hands, who else only cleans their fridge out on a quarterly or bi-annual basis?  As a science experiment it’s kind of cool – as a surprise when you’re opening a container – not so much.  That’s why I highly recommend the see-through containers.  Then you can just see all the delicious, moldy-green bits (shudder) and know what has to go before opening the vessel and releasing the new species you’re cultivating into the air like Anthrax.  There are times, when the entire container ends up in the garbage.  Usually it’s David who does that.  I can’t stand to throw anything away that could be properly recycled.  I will empty even the foulest container, overcoming my food odor gag-reflex to get that sucker washed and put into the recycling bin.

We don’t have a garburator, which means that when we do have a refrigerator stacked with muck and yuck plastic containers – we need to take a large spoon, walk to the main floor bathroom (oh so conveniently located off the kitchen) and begin the FQQ (Food of Questionable Quality) purge into the toilet.  WARNING – make sure the food is in bite sized pieces when you do this!  Don’t just take a whole freaking chicken breast or head of broccoli /cauliflower and think you can flush it – it WON’T work!  Also – make sure that you have a plunger on hand – just in case your bite-sized pieces of FQQ get clogged in said toilet.  ‘Cause nothing says party like a bathroom floor filled with an inch of contaminated water.

Fridge cleaning is one of those household chores that just gets put on the back burner for other more noticeable things, like say dirty dishes in the sink or occasional chairs covered in cat hair.  I’m all for the lower effort housecleaning – the things that take next to no time to do but make it look like the house is really clean.  Vacuuming is a good one.  You see those nice vacuum marks on the floor and it can go a great way to perfect the illusion of cleanliness.  Every day when I’m done my shower I make sure the bathroom sink is clean.  I can do that quick fix in about 60 seconds.  I was a Molly Maid during university, so when I’m motivated, the house can get cleaned fairly quickly.  Or it would if I didn’t get all distracticated – which happens ALL the time to me. 

I start in one room and then something else will catch my eye, so those papers that I had intended to file up in the study wind up on the stairs as I break down cardboard boxes which remind me there are more in the basement, but then I notice that the kitty litter needs to be changed, and when I’m in the tool room locating the garbage bags for the kitty litter I see that the floor needs to be swept and then when I go to get the broom, I notice that the cats have taken a strand of the carpet underneath David’s drum set and are unraveling it… and then it’s the end of the day and other than the clean bathroom sink that I managed to wipe after my shower, the house pretty much looks the same.  And then, even when I do go on an all-out cleaning fit and the house is vacuumed and counters are clear of crap, Rissa comes home and says “Is someone coming over tonight?  The house is so clean!” 

“NO!! NO ONE IS COMING OVER!!!  YOU KNOW IT IS POSSIBLE THAT WE, AS A FAMILY, WORKING COOPERATIVELY, COULD LIVE IN A HOUSE WHERE THINGS ARE CLEANED, TIDIED AND FREAKING VACUUMED AS A MATTER OF COURSE!!!!”