Cleaning out the Refridgerator.

This weekend we're having a birthday party for my son. So that means I'm doing my usual pre-party freak-out house-cleaning. This involves me scrubbing walls, cleaning baseboards, and washing things that I never think to wash. It's funny how you can think your house is clean until you envision it through someone else's eyes. You would think the fact that I'm a stay at home mom would mean I'm a meticulous house keeper, but that's just not the case. I just don't have the fortitude to be constantly cleaning.

Out of all the cleaning I do, it's the refridgerator that really gets to me. Usually I just open the door and grab something and quickly slam it shut, doing my best to ignore how gross it actually is in there. In this economy, I'm trying my best not to waste anything, so therefore I save all leftovers. Even if it was something that noone liked the first go-round. I guess I'm convinced that leftovers are like fine wine, they get better with age. But that's not true, they don't get better, they just get furrier.

I finally decided this morning I would deal with the fridge. I prayed to the Patron Saint of Frigidaire to give me strength. I opened the door and the first thing I noticed is that I have 7 jars of pickles. All dill. If anyone was to look in my fridge they might think we're doing some kind of weird ritual involving dill pickles, so I toss them all except the newest jar. I take everything else out and put it on the kitchen table. In addition to all the pickles, I find that I have 5 tubs of sour cream, and 6 containers of cottage cheese. Now I'm not a betting man, but I can guarantee that it would not be worth my while to open any of them, so I pitched them all.

After 30 minutes, I have everything out, and I start removing shelves to clean them. I get them all out, and covering the bottom of the fridge is pancake syrup. How in the hell did syrup get there? I keep my syrup in the pantry. There has literally never been syrup in my refridgerator. After dwelling on that for a few more minutes, I tackle the job of getting it up. I ended up having to scrape it, but finally it's gone.

After throwing away countless bags of fuzzy things that used to be grapes, or maybe apples, who knows, I was finally done. Looking at my gleaming white fridge, giving myself a big ole pat on the back, I start the job of getting all the shelves hung up, and all the food back in. It didn't take me too long. I worked up quite an appetite while I was cleaning, but unless I can figure out how to make some class of soup out of soy sauce, ranch dressing, A-1, and dill pickles, I guess I'll have to go to the grocery store.