Fridge Forensics…no, not the science stuff inside.

While I was cleaning     – an interjection into your day outside of my normal posting schedule. 

Yes, it has to be done.  I’d love to be able to snap my fingers and have this chore away, but it isn’t so.  What I so dislike about cleaning, is that once you begin, you see more to do.  And then you are aware, so a decision must be made.  Ignore it or tackle it.   While doing the floors, you notice the bottom of the cabinets.  While doing the cabinets, you notice the side of the stove you never see.  And so on…

This inevitably led me to the refrigerator.  No, not the inside.  I’m talking about the outside of the fridge. My fridge looks like someone’s wallet or perhaps their jewelry box; it is so full of keepsakes.  I pondered this for a few minutes (beats scrubbing, you know?)  I then rifled through a few mental images of friends and family and their fridges. Pristine, for the most part. Doing what fridges do, keeping stuff frozen and cold.  Granted, most of my friends are single, and many are childless, so they don’t have oodles of photos on the fridge of their kids.  But, the rest of it?  How did my fridge door become a snapshot of what is important to me?  Is this an American thing only, this, fridge collage business?  I mean, I realize some people don’t even have a fridge in their home. 

 So here is what is on my fridge (counting all three sides):

 25 magnets of varying sorts – the majority are the clippie kind that hold things, but some are from places my daughter has traveled, some are sayings that I find inspirational, others are from states where my friends live; two calendars, one two years old, because it is from a hotel my daughter and I stayed when I was moving her back from the Outer Banks post-hurricane; a measuring scale for translating recipes; an advert for a band I saw one weekend at a local hang-out; the information for the local walk-in clinic; my annual parking pass for an amusement park (where else would I keep it?)

Three pieces of artwork by a local artist, plus a print of a sunflower.

Five photos of my kids, including one from thirteen years ago, of me and my daughters at a Girl Scout camping event; I am wearing a boonie hat, a hideous Hawaiian shirt and making bunny ears over my youngest daughter’s head!  I am beaming, and they look maybe three degrees from miserable (they don’t share my love of the outdoors at all)

 A snapshot map of the local area

A sticker that reads: “Stupidity should be painful” (not sure if this is for me, or for visitors, lol)

 A small white board for making lists

A timer

The recycling pick-up schedule and what’s allowed

The summer schedule for farm pick-up of local free-range eggs and raw goat’s milk

Four take-out menus (BBQ, Pizza, Thai, Subs)

 

This is a lot of stuff to have on one’s fridge!  It made me wonder why I have so many non-fridge things on the fridge?  What does it mean?  Practically I know part of it is due to living in a miniature place and not having a place to put things that isn’t already in use holding other things. Harking back though, many of these things came from my farmhouse fridge – which also had the magnetic alphabet and numbers for my grandson’s pleasure.  I’ve never considered myself a ‘visual’ person, but this has caused me to question that – this emotional bric-a-brac that I see every day.

Is this a cultural thing?  Is it a weird thing? Should I seek help 🙂 Could we use this for psychological purposes? What do you have on your fridge?

Back to cleaning…

 

~SE