Don't Judge Me

My refridgerator had developed a funk. I wasn't sure what was causing the offensive odor so my plan was to empty it completely and do a sort of smell-as-I-go thing.

There it is...yet another evolutionary failure. (see old blog about evolutionary fails. "Evolution" 10/31/09) Why can't we just throw shit away when it has gone beyond it's "use by" date? Why do we assume that we are smarter than the people who make, and determine the shelf life of the food we eat?

So I tore into the offensive appliance with a vengeance. I vowed never again to let foodstuffs go even one day beyond the recommended "use by" date. I have a calendar...it's right on my phone, and computer, and newspaper and even on the T.V. No reason to ever let food go bad again right? WRONG. I am getting older and the smartasses who put the "use by" dates on food have begun hiding the dates in odd places on food packaging and using the smallest print known to man. Yeah thats really funny jackholes, and a program I saw recently said that 2000 people would die this year from food poisoning. (maybe it was 200...I forget)

Back to me. I emptied the fridge and physically examined every item in there. Looking, smelling, and occasionally tasting the contents. If you are inspired by my fridge cleaning adventure please take note, if you haven't seen it in a couple of weeks, and you don't remember buying or preparing it, DON'T TASTE IT yuck!

Okay, so as I was going along I came upon a tupperware-ish bowl half full of kidney beans. (delicious on a salad) I didn't know how long they had been in there so I gave them a sniff. MISTAKE! MISTAKE! ABORT MISSION...ABORT! I am so happy I hadn't eaten any breakfast yet. My gag reflex is pretty tuned in to foul smelling stuff. Yes I very nearly puked.

The beans and the bowl found their way to the trash bag which quickly found it's way to the trash bin outside. (sorry tash man, I will put some Sonic gift cards out with the trash Tuesday evening)

The only other real mystery I discovered in there was what I believe to be cantaloupe juice. The biggest part of the mystery was, how the hell would cantaloupe juice get under that drawer? And how long has it been since a cantaloupe was even in here? No worries, eventually I got it sparkling clean. All the out of date stuff went into the trash and I think I managed to finish before the rest of the food spoiled from being out of the fridge.

So did it work? I don't know yet. Thought I would give it a couple hours to cool back down and then check for any odd aromas inside.

I think I will be scheduling a regular fridge deep-clean every so often from now on. I'm not sure what the recommended time between fridge deep-cleanings is, but I think every couple months is probably sufficient.