"I'd rather share a loo with a man than a fridge"
Gentle reader, I bring you a tale of refrigerator etiquette. Or rather, of one partner who observes said etiquette – moi - and another who stalwartly resolutely refuses to - Terence, my beloved, who is rather less beloved after years of cold-storage confrontation.
Six years ago, when Terence and I began cohabiting, I had never before boasted a full-sized fridge. “This will mark a new era of adult sophistication!” I crowed, “in which lavish meals are concocted from an exquisite #fridgescape.” Wrong. For what I had neglected to anticipate is that I would be sharing this space with a heterosexual male.
While I am a health-conscious hedonist, he is an insanitary cheapskate, privileging quantity over quality. Forget the fashionable FIFO, or “First In, First Out” method, a stacking strategy that ensures foods with the closest expiration date are placed at the front, to be used ahead of newer wares. Tezzer advocates a FFFA policy: Free-for-[f-ing]-all. I recently shared a picture of our chaotically-piled fridge interior on social media. “With all due respect, this is a disgrace,” noted one observer. Seconded. For, truly, I would rather share a lavatory with a man than a fridge. (In Terence’s case, there’s little to choose between them.)
I give you the Battle of the Fridge, or A Tale of Two Chilling Methodologies...
Hannah says:
My fridge philosophy is governed by practicality and aesthetics. On the one hand, I crave ease of meal assembly, by merit of ingenious arrangement, since it is I who am largely the meal assembler. I picture myself serenely cooking - my own feminist #tradwife - against a backdrop of pristine elegance.
In this fantasy, I maintain a protein shelf, as recommended by modish nutrition queen Amelia Freer. Beneath it should lurk grains, fruit and vegetables, in moodily-lit transparent storage. Seeing what foodstuffs we have, and making use of them in what we prepare, would thus become a cinch. A lifetime of health would ensue.
There would be rounds of pungent Époisses, jars of homemade pistachio pesto, and the odd box of Booja-Booja vegan truffles. In the door, would rest exotic mylks, essential vitamins, and sundry girlish face masks. And if they happened to end up on my Instagram grid, well, so be it.
Instead, chaos reigns, the fridge never opened without towers of teetering leftovers toppling to the floor. My kimchi is dwarfed by his Kievs, dogfood festering alongside my kefir, fenced in by 400,000 male condiments with single spoonfuls remaining. Everywhere I am assailed by stinking salami and white carbs. My poor vegetables sit squished about these atrocities - some half-frozen, the rest rotting - impossible to locate until crawling up the walls. Cleaning its contents feels like painting the Forth Bridge. Some women long for separate bathrooms, I yearn for a separate fridge.
Terence says:
Space optimisation, expiry ordering, clean lines of sight: these are the bases of sound fridge organisation. Bottles at the back, pickles in the middle, dairy at the front. And a tight ship on left-overs – one in, one out. No opening the dressed crab before finishing the casserole. This way order lies.
Oh, and call me old-fashioned, but I thought fridges were for food? Ours is filled with foreign bodies that, aided by Borrowers, have crept out of the boudoir and into the kitchen. Where once was milk is now Jurlique Lavender Hydrating Mist. Instead of marmalade on my bread, it’ll be The Goodness Elixir (“relief, serenity, vibrance”). The egg tray is out, Cryo Cooling Eye Patches in. I can’t make an omelette, but could open a spa.
My freezer used to be for fish fingers and peas. Now its hides translucent masks reminding me of American Psycho, curious metal spheres, and phallic rolling devices making me worry what happens when I’m at work. And she wonders why there’s a space problem. There is also a temperature issue, a “cold war,” if you like. Hannah wants it temperate, I want it glacial - to buy me time to get me through my Tupperwared man scraps.
I tried the autonomy solution, establishing a mini-fridge in my man cave, but found myself sidling back up the garden path on the off-chance I might run into the girl. I live in hope she’ll pop by at the same time and our fingers will graze as I reach for the semi-skimmed, she for a magnesium supplement.
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