Turn back time... I just got here so here's a late addition... Actually I wrote it before seeing there was a deadline... The Fridge “You can tell more about a man by looking in his refrigerator than by looking into his eyes.” Sarah told me without flinching. I flinched though, and broke eye contact as I thought about the contents of my fridge and how it reflected the contents of my heart. “And you want me to report to you what Carl has in his fridge.” I said, not yet feeling at all astute. Carl was an old friend, though we had grown somewhat apart, he was re-entering my circle by dating my ex-girlfriend and sometimes partner in catering. “Yes.” She smiled, “you’ve grown smarter without me around to destroy your brain.” It was that easy to get me to do things. Push me around and I’d wash your rugs. Pull my hair and I’ll carry 4x8 sheets of sheetrock five flights up to redo your walls. Flatter me while slapping me around and I’d spy on an old friend and submit a report Homeland Security would be proud of. “By the way, who says you can tell more?” “Hey Carl, you got anything to drink?” I yelled back towards the living room as I walked out of the bathroom. From beyond the sounds of the time suck machine called a playstation, I heard Carl reply to check in the fridge. A vampires invitation. A naked fridge says more than an adorned one, thought I, as I scanned the month old notices and the sticky note exhortations to DO IT and WRITE ANYTHING. Were those notes to me, I wondered. With a tug and a gasp, the secret heart of my old friend Carl became mine to pillage. If I had been feeling it, I would’ve closed my eyes and used my nose first. Sight makes claims on all the senses, ruining any sort of buildup as it seeks the source of the jumble of scents that may assault perception. Instead I spotted the old looking half head of lettuce and the takeout carton with red sweet and sour sauce dripped down the side quickly, hardly savoring the slightly pet store like smell. “Okay, let’s see here.” I knelt down to inspect the half empty character of Carl. Was it half empty, I pondered, or half full. What he would call it? Eggs. Five of them. A four egg omelet one day and a three another? Showing an inconsistency of character? One a day for a week? Showing a dull insipid regularity? Milk, a quart dated fresh. A quart, that meant no cereal and maybe coffee with a splash. A man who liked his stimulants only slightly cushioned. No cereal… what ever could that mean. Four jars of mustard, all rough, all French. This bespoke of a man with contradicting tastes, rough yet refined. More contradictions. A jar of gherkins, not cornichons. DelMonte catsup. What of that? DelMonte Catsup vs Heinz KetchUp? Southern European softness over Nordic hardness? Bread, in the fridge, this means roaches in the kitchen. An apple, green with the label still on it. Unwashed meant he felt no fear of imported germs, green meant he liked the poignancy sour sweet contrasts. My eye strayed to the takeout carton. Ten bottles of domestic beer lay stacked on the bottom, but to the back of the first rack were three opened and partly empty (or mostly full?) liters of cola. All flat, I doubted not. These were sodas who had not known glassware, I could just tell. Cold sweat dripped down from the icebound top freezer portion, and I pondered opening it. Did I ever want to know more about Carl than what I knew already? Going into a man’s freezer could be like going into his closet and finding the clothing he never wore but wouldn’t toss. Here might be the things that haunt him, that bring him home to his mother, memories frozen forever in time like photographs of some European adventure when he was 16 and met some Swiss girl named Elsa. What was I doing in this man’s refrigerator? I fled then. Calling out my regrets as I exited, Carl glancing up from the action packed screen for long enough to purse his lips and say “Later.” Now I sit, scribbling these thoughts on the walls of my own fridge, the harsh clear light of the 25watt bulb casting cold shadows on wet walls. It hums... it shakes... trying to adjust.
