You know them. The
chores you must do, but hate to do, so you avoid them until—well, until
something goes wrong. Then your evasive maneuvers avalanche into a major
problem.
I could list at least
ten household chores I abhor, but recently cleaning the refrigerator climbed
onto the top of my list. Usually, I do a “sniff-n-toss” round every Sunday. You
know, where I tentatively open every Rubbermaid container, give it a cautious
sniff, and toss it if there’s even a hint of spoilage. I do a good job of
remembering when I served something and can judge the exact moment when
something must meet the garbage disposal. I don’t consider this weekly ritual
really cleaning the fridge, though.
Cleaning the fridge
involves taking out every single item from every self and bin, and then
scrubbing down the interior. I check for expirations dates, throw out anything
that’s resided too long, and reorganize everything into better categories. Currently,
I have hot peppers, pickles, relish, and jellies standing next to each other
one door cubby. I don’t know why, but it works for me.
Cleaning the fridge
includes emptying the freezer compartment. This task daunts me, so I drag my
feet when it comes to doing this. Off-and-on for years, our freezer insists
upon dumping water onto the floor. This is the first signal that there’s a
clog. If I ignore this warning, the water begins to pool back in the freezer
where it becomes a plate of ice, adhering the basket in my freezer to the
bottom. Usually, my Type A personality jumps onto this aberration immediately,
and I defrost the ice. The cascade of events over the last few months forced me
to look the other way, and the thin sheet of ice grew daily until the entire
basket filled with ice. Our freezer looked like we’d had a block of ice
delivered!
Last night, armed with
heat gun and a pile of towels, David tackled the task of melting our giant ice
cube. He added a screw driver to his arsenal and eventually pried the basket
from the freezer. While I cleared the basket wires of ice, he cleaned every
tube and plug he could find. He muscled the fridge away from the wall and
attacked the dusty backside with the vacuum, a chore I’ve neglected for doing
for, well—months.
Now our Admiral sits
neatly organized and gleaming inside and out. I tell myself that I’ll keep “on
top” of this chore and won’t neglect it again. I promise myself that if I
notice a little ice forming on that bottom basked, I’ll flush out the tube and
clear out the clog. Yep. That’s my plan.
Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
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