Today’s Homemaker

Okay, so I was it today. I cleaned out my fridge from top to bottom. If I had known what venomous monster lurked in its recesses, I probably would have put it off indefinitely. Above is the “before” picture. Doesn’t look TOO bad, right? I mean, a little cramped and disorganized, but not nasty.

So I took some good advice and started by turning off the fridge. I pulled every last morsel off of the shelves and out of the drawers. At this point, I didn’t check the contents–just pulled it all out and set it on the table. I ran a sinkful of hot, soapy water and proceeded to take out the shelves, one by one, and scrub them good. Things weren’t too bad, I thought. I was hopeful that this little project would only take me an hour or so.

Then I got to the bottom. As I pulled the left drawer out of its shelf, I noticed a strange brownish-purple substance underneath. What was this? I pulled out the other drawer. Oh my word. It ran all along the bottom of the fridge. I held my breath as I grabbed for my trusty long-handled cleaning brush. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Underneath those drawers at the bottom laid a mess that was simply indescribable. I’ll attempt. Lining the entire bottom of floor of the refrigerator was a thick layer of brownish purple goo. It was sticky, but firm. Grossly ugly, but without scent. I still haven’t figured out what it consisted of, but it had found a perfect hiding place, underneath those drawers. You can’t see it until you pull them out. I would have almost rather lived in ignorance.

I scraped and scraped. I sprayed with a mild cleaning solution and waited. I scraped some more. I tried scrubbing it off. I sprayed again and waited longer. Finally it looked like some of it was coming up. I continued scraping, mopping up as much as I could with an old towel, but there were still some patches that wouldn’t budge. I doused it with Goo Gone, which finally did the trick.

The rest of my project pretty much went as you would expect. I put all of the drawers and shelves back in and tossed all of the old food out. I took some more good advice and decided to use only clear containers to store our leftovers in. Here’s how I organized everything:

• Top left–big, tall items (milk, juice, etc.)
• Top right–leftovers and other items that need to be eaten soon
• Middle left–medium sized items and condiments that won’t fit in the door (mayonnaise, pickles, etc.). I’m also going to put on it a box filled with healthy snacks as soon as I go grocery shopping. That way, my son can reach in and grab whatever he wants without a problem (he’s two and loves to do things for himself).
• Middle right–medium sized items that are not in danger of being forgotten (eggs, for example)
• Bottom left–deli/cheese drawer
• Bottom right–meat (so it doesn’t drip on anything)
• Very bottom drawers–potatoes (which, contrary to popular belief, do VERY well in the fridge) and other veggies that we’re not likely to forget about

I’m not going to lie to you–this process was time-consuming. It took me two hours and 15 minutes from start to finish. I had a list of five things I wanted to get accomplished today, and I think I’ll only get to two of them because of my energy level right now. But that’s fine. I’m pretty proud of myself for getting rid of that monster. I only wish I had gotten a picture as proof of my victory. At the time, I was just thinking “oh my gosh, I do not want proof of THAT!”. It’s probably better this way.