Close The Fridge Door

Those four words were as much a part of my childhood as my dolls. Our Frigidaire was a step above a wooden icebox, but it wasn’t the sophisticated piece of equipment found in today’s kitchens. It was roomy, though, and the shelves were sturdy, not like the puny plastic found in modern refrigerators. Vegetables were easily stored in two large crispers. There was no need to bend celery or chop off the top few inches to get it to fit.

In our fridge, the freezer was no larger than a bread box. It was drilled into us to know what we wanted before we opened the door because things would melt. This was particularly true if ice cream had survived the night. It was customary to consume it as fast as Dad brought it home. Anything left in the carton would be soft by morning and fit for nothing but the dogs.

For unknown reasons, Mom was always “saving” something for me to the disgust of my siblings. It might be a piece of pie, an apple, or a serving of Jell-O. “Save it for Sharon” was a chant my sister and brother heard daily, especially during summer months. Chances are I didn’t want the saved item, but that didn’t matter. It was “Saved for Sharon” and eventually landed in the slop pail.

Long before “energy efficient” became buzz words, Mom knew it was a bad idea to open the fridge door and stand there for five minutes, hunting for something good. She also knew we knew there was nothing new on the shelves. Nobody had been to town so whatever was in the fridge in the morning was still there in the afternoon. Maybe one of us had eaten the strawberries or the last of the chocolate pudding so there might be less of something, but there certainly wasn’t more of something else.

But you know how folks are. Even when we know there’s nothing desirable in the fridge, we open the door and gaze at the contents, hoping we missed something the first three times we looked. It’s human nature. It’s part of our genetic makeup. We push aside last night’s lasagna on the outside chance there’s a piece of chocolate cake hiding behind it. We check the crisper for the candy bar we hid there last week, completely forgetting we devoured it ten minutes after we hid it.

I don’t know why we think something enticing will magically appear in our refrigerator, but we do. No amount of common sense stops us from searching, and no amount of drilling will convince us to “close the fridge door” until we’re completely satisfied we really did eat the last of last night’s chocolate pudding.