The heat index is 106deg. and I don’t want to go outside, so I’ve decided to
search for the heart of my house. It’s not the breaker panel. It’s not the
water heater. It’s not under the sofa where all the dogs’ hair collects.
I finally discover it; it’s the refrigerator.
I should’ve known. I spend a lot of time staring into our refrigerator, which
is unique in America as it has no magnets, stickers, or art work attached to
it. On the outside, it’s bare and black; it looks like a grown-up’s
refrigerator in a chic-chic magazine. But not on the inside. On the inside,
it’s stuffed with everything except something to eat right now which is one of
the things I’m looking for when I stare into it. I’m also looking for
inspiration — for this column, for other articles, for my attire, for my
hairdo, for my attitude — which I also never find. But still I stare.
Our refrigerator is a repository for the essentials of Richard’s many hobbies.
The top shelf is almost entirely occupied by a plastic vat of malt extract for
making home brews. The bottom crisper drawer is full of bottled home brew
awaiting its opening act. The Deli Drawer is full of seeds wrapped in damp
paper towels and some kind of dust you sprinkle on pea plants to help them
germinate. The bottom shelf is loaded with bowls containing various sour dough
starters.
The rest of the fridge is crammed with 10 different kinds of mustard,
condiments like curry paste and orange-ginger marinade which are inedible solo,
and boxes of dry goods like couscous, cornmeal, dog biscuits, and rice which
are seeking asylum from an invasion of moths in our pantry and which I will
never eat since I’ve seen the moths fly from those very boxes. There are no
less than eight plastic bags of stale corn tortillas, a few pieces of
vegetables and half-eaten apples, and mysterious containers sprouting foreign
cultures.
I long for a refrigerator stocked like those I remember seeing displayed at
Sears when I went there as a kid. All the fridge doors were opened, like
scalpers showing you their selection of watches hung inside their trench coats.
The freezer was packed with boxes of Banquet Fried Chicken and a military
line-up of ice cream cartons. The refrigerator’s shelves held layered parfaits
all ready-to-go, a ham with inviting slices curled in offering, a Jell-O mold,
a glass bowl filled with fruit. Of course, this was fake food, a fact I noted
with regret after stealing one of the rubber grapes and chewing on it for
several hours, but still you had the impression you could feed from this
fridge.
I can’t even figure out why we have a refrigerator. The only palatable object
is a chunk of watermelon which has been attacked by the creature on which my
father blamed most of the peculiar refrigerator events which occurred in our
house:
“Wow. What happened to the watermelon?” I asked him one day when I was a kid
as I stared into our little frost-encrusted Kenmore. He took a look.
“Oooh,” he said, “See what happens when you leave the door open too long? The
Refrigerator Bird swoops in and eats the heart right out of your watermelon.”
This article appears in July 12 • 1996 and July 12 • 1996 (Cover).