I'm Living in the Dark Ages

One of the worst household chores I hate to do is defrosting the refrigerator/freezer.

Defrosting. I know. A word from the Dark Ages.

For some ungodly reason, probably there is a scientific one and Jim knows the answer but I refuse to ask him, our trailer's refrigerator has the old-fashioned "fins" in the back and ice builds up quickly on them.

This means that I have to defrost the refrigerator AND freezer about every three months.

I am NOT a happy camper.

Jim's "quick" solution is to turn off the fridge over night and let the ice melt.

It does. The majority of it it, anyway.

And in a perfect world, the ice would melt perfectly, one drop at a time. It would fall perfectly on the small ledge under the fins, and swirl down the tiny pea-sized hole, out a hose to never, never land.

But we all know that the world isn't perfect now, don't we?

So, yeah, the ice melts. AND drips wherever the hell it wants to.

This means that when I go to get out the package of bagels, along comes a bunch of water that's sitting in the crevices of the wrapping.

Or there's water on the top of containers that pours onto my toesies when I reach for one of them.

Or there's standing water in the drawers when I pull them open.

At this point smoke is coming out of my ears, and a few choice words out of my mouth.

I know Jim pushes that button to turn off the fridge just to "push my button" to piss me off enough to defrost the fridge the correct way.

You see, I procrastinate.

I procrastinate for the simple reason that it's a pain in my patootie to defrost the damn thing.

Defrosting means lugging the two coolers in from outside which are stored under our trailer. They need to be banged around a couple of times to get the creepy-crawly things off of them, like earwigs. Then I have to wipe out the coolers before even using them. I put a plastic garbage bag down on the floor before setting the coolers down.

Now I'm ready to start defrosting, and I'm already tired.

I turn off the appliance and pack everything I can fit into the coolers. The rest of the stuff sits on my teeny tiny counter.

I put a small fan on the floor and angle it upwards to help with the defrosting process. Nothing like hearing chunks of ice hitting the metal shelves.

I take out all the drawers and wash them, then wipe down the sides and bottom of the fridge. It always amazes me when I find a stray hair under the drawers. How the heck does it get there?

The fridge goes pretty fast. It's the freezer that looks like a small chunk of Antarctica. This whole process takes me at least two hours. Then I put everything neatly back in the fridge and freezer.

Jim STILL can't find anything.

Even when it's right in front of his face.

He'll open up the refrigerator and ask, "Hon, where's the mayonnaise?"

"Third shelf on the right," I'll reply.

"I can't find it!"

So I sigh, get up, go over to the fridge and point to it - right where I said it would be.

I have a friend who believes that the reason men can't seem to find anything, especially if it's right in front of them, is because they don't have a tracking device - THE UTERUS.

I'm beginning to think this is true.

I did a little test. I bought a package of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups and didn't mention it to Jim.

I put the bag on the shelf behind the broccoli. Half the bag was still visible.

Jim loves chocolate as much as I do.

He never found them. Even though they were in plain sight, so to speak.

So every day I'd enjoy a couple of them....savoring their chocolate-peanutty goodness. Smiling to myself about my little secret.

Cruel? Maybe.

But they were there for the taking. Jim just had to LOOK, you know?

Anyway, I rewarded myself with a few pieces of heaven after cleaning the fridge and downed them with a Diet Dr. Pepper. Nothing goes better with chocolate than a diet pop. Aahh...

Oh, yeah, I DID share the last few with Jim. Not to worry!