Fridge and Moral Compass

 

what i love about my fridge is that it gives me a feeling of satisfaction -
even if i’m not hungry, i like to look inside it and see all my options. i
love the array of natural wonders – even in the city i can see a bit of the
countryside, sometimes, especially in summer, i can smell the peaches or
mangos that i just put back in because they were getting too ripe or the
green grass smell of a cut watermelon.

what i love even more is just after a delivery or a shopping trip when i
look inside and see lots of good things to feed my kids and my friends,
somehow it makes me feel like a good (in the deeply moral as well the purely
everyday sense) mother and woman – that i have provided well and
bountifully.

usually, my days involve me running back and forth so sometimes i don’t get
to organize my fridge well and i hate hate hate food rotting from neglect -
it makes me feel wasteful, slothful, really spiritually bereft – i am
ashamed to say i sometimes toss out heaps of black, mouldering organic
lettuce and putrid roast chicken or something – which means i guess that my
fridge can be a moral compass too

i can use it to gauge how well or badly i am connecting with my family. i
adore a generous and gleaming refrigerator…

i am totally neurotic about butter stuck to the inside of the plastic cover
or rings of jam or ketchup on the shelves. if i am in a very virtuous mood,
i might take some fantastic or windex and wipe out all the shelves.

pathetically, i now let my housekeeper do that and then breathe a sigh of
relief on friday afternoons when she leaves and my fridge is a sight to
behold. another symptom of my inability to properly look at my
responsibilities…