One need only to count the number of times the door of our refrigerator opens and closes each day. It is every family’s favorite appliance.
Think of the time each of us spends just pondering the contents of the big, cold box. We stand there considering its contents, the cool air wafting against our skin. We contemplate the contents.
Many of us are attracted to that machine, which my mother called an “icebox” long after they were plugged in. As a kid, I could stand in the cool breeze for long periods of time wondering what was for dinner.
The refrigerator has become more than a place to store future meals or leftovers.
Where is your home’s bulletin board and message center? Aha.
Some of us believe that the front of our refrigerators are cluttered and detract from the tidy look of the kitchen. Others would argue that it is the single place that defines the family. It is where all our relatives go each day.
I would clear off the front door, but where to start? Do we get rid of the grandkids’ pictures or family photos? How about all of those free magnets with phone numbers we might need? Then there are the other flotsam and jetsam of modern life, those things we don’t know where else would go.
Some of you more contemporary types have solved the problem by buying stainless steel. It is not magnetic. Indeed, but it takes tape well.
The ambulance companies know our habits enough that they give us whole informational questionnaires that we can leave on the refrigerator door so emergency personnel can find them.
Over the years, their background colors have changed, but their reason for existence has not. When I was young, the refrigerator was white, then avocado and then bronze. We skipped Harvest Gold and went right to Almond. Still, the decorations stayed the same.
There was, and still is, that proud moment when your art goes up on the official gallery door. It is the same place for good report cards and handwritten notes from Nana.
It is where checks wait to be cashed and special bills wait to get paid.
A graffiti wall, a shrine and a post office all in one, it stands as a softly humming center to our lives.
The refrigerator is more than a place to keep the Corona cold.
• Mike McLellan can be contacted by calling and leaving a message at 830-4231 or e-mailing him at DrMikeM@sbcglobal.net.
damnit, I was having a nice relaxing lunch and now you have me fired up. I absolutely hate that my wife puts all kinds of crap on the front of the refrigerator. It make our house look like a bunch of trailer trash live in it. When we moved in to our current house I immediately put up one of those cork bulletin board thingies across from the refirgerator and she agreed she would use it instead.
UGHGHG So why is my refrigerator covered with garbage again? She apparently somehow used up the vast space on the bulletin board then thought "hey, this is great. Now I still have all that space on the refrigerator to make a bigger mess".
As for being the favorite appliance in the American home; I am skeptical. I think it is probably the TV.