Disgusting Refrigerator Stories

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane... Chores and Duties...

I found myself in the mood to clean the refrigerator this afternoon. I took out the shelves and drawers and washed them in the sink. I threw out a few virtually empty salad dressings and pickle jars. I didn't find anything too nasty except for one lemon that was starting to go moldy. It didn't take too long and I'm glad it's done.

When I had my first school-teaching job, I shared a little basement apartment with my sister who was in high school. There wasn't any bus service in our county and we lived 32 miles out in the country, so it saved a lot of driving for Charlotte to live with me.

We cooked for ourselves, but we didn't usually have much in the refrigerator. Maybe that's why we didn't see a need to clean it out very often. One time, a little bowl of pork-and-beans sat in the back corner of a shelf for months.

One day I came home and Charlotte told me that she had defrosted and cleaned out the refrigerator. "You know that bowl of pork and beans?" she asked. "Those were peas."

Since then, I've tried to clean out the fridge more regularly.

When the kids were little, I went through a phase of using Hidden Vallen Ranch Dressing mixes. I would stir up the dressing and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator. The dressing was white with dark flecks in it and even though the jar was never labeled, we all knew what it was.

One evening as we were eating supper, Keely wanted some ranch dressing to dip her carrot sticks in, so she got out the jar and spooned some onto her plate. I didn't pay much attention to what she was doing until she made loud spitting and gagging noises.

"That dressing's spoiled, Mom!" she sputtered indignantly. Then I realized what she had got from the refrigerator -- not a jar of ranch dressing, but a jar of cold, congealed sausage gravy, left over from the biscuits and gravy I'd fixed as a treat for Dennis that morning.

After that shocking experience, Keely wouldn't taste sausage gravy for many, many years. The morning after Christmas this year, I fixed biscuits and gravy, and I noticed that she had some. I'm glad she has finally recovered.