Grandma's Fridge

Cleaning my grandma's fridge is task I dread every month. Almost once every month, my grandma will call me over to help her with this. Let me tell you, it is awful. Smells emanate from containers with unknown substances inside. Some food even has mold growing on it. It's a frightening experience.

Just last night I was called upon to clean my grandmas fridge. I wanted to decline, but I love my grandma and I owe it to her. She's been like a mother to me. Even then, it's not something I look forward to.

So I sat at the floor of her white tiled kitchen and pulled things out of the fridge, working on one shelf at a time, as she sat in chair and set everything on the counter. Then, we went through each container. I cautiously opened each lid, almost afraid of what could be inside. Oh the smells I smelt yesterday!

Some of the stuff in her fridge was easy to identify, there was month old desert pizza, soup that had gone bad, but some of it was just plain terrifying! I'm almost beginning to think my grandma is taking part in strange experiments at her house. There could have been lizard brains in one of those containers! I'm not sure what a lizard brain smells like, but I know most of those containers did not smell pleasant.

It's hard for my grandmother to get around and even harder for her to reach a lot of things in her fridge (or even remember what's in her fridge) so I can't blame her for letting the food in her fridge go bad. And it's my job, as her grateful grandchild to help her with these tasks. But when I come over to her house to clean that fridge, gosh I just wish I didn't have a sense of smell.

I guess cleaning out the fridge, no matter how smelly it is, is worth the time I get to spend with my grandmother.

Years down the road, I’ll look back on this and realize I wouldn’t have traded that time in for anything, but right now, I’m dreading the next time I have to clean Grandma’s refrigerator.