I don’t know if there are many household chores as satisfying as cleaning out the refrigerator.
It started out innocently enough — I was just going to clean one shelf of the refrigerator where something sticky had spilled.
An hour later, I had the crisper drawers on the counter and my head stuck deep inside the bottom of the fridge as the witch in “Hansel and Gretel” came to mind.
My husband and I only have a couple of ongoing disagreements: one, whether Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption was really guilty (he absolutely wasn’t), and two, whether food should be eaten past its expiration date.
I’ve been known to snatch a bottle of salad dressing out of another family member’s hand to check the date on it, or warn dinner guests that when my husband says “yes, we have hot dog buns,” that might mean they’re hard as bricks.
My husband meant it when someone asked in a party game years ago what animal he’d be, and he said a vulture.
So, as I went item by item through our refrigerator, the trash can filled up.
My husband and younger son were distracted in the living room watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I was OK with not seeing a second time. (Besides, I know the answer — spoiler alert — it’s 42.)
Some food was not dangerously out of date, but I get a little twitchy about eating anything within a week of the date on the package.
I tossed the sour cream and ranch dressing, both of which expired in July, the ketchup that expired in April and the “vegetable-oil spread,” which was supposedly good till June. Lord knows, it probably had enough plastic in it to last until the next millennium, but it’s gone.
At least those items had this year’s date.
I found Satchmo’s mustard I bought my husband on our trip to New Orleans in 2014, and yellow mustard with the date Nov. 7, 2013. I’m pretty sure he’s used that within the last month. Still another jar of mustard, this one of the spicy-brown variety, had a date of May 2014.
My husband eats mustard on hot dogs. Speaking of which, they expired in December, yet my husband kept throwing them on the grill.
I pulled out the vegetable and fruit bins, emptied and washed them. I tossed a few bad apples so they wouldn’t spoil the whole bunch.
Then I got on my hands and knees and cleaned way, way in the back of the refrigerator. I saw a coil of plastic tubing rolled up like a garden hose. I cleaned it, too, and dust and crumbs flew out like from a piñata. I noticed something lying beside it. It was the piece de resistance: a single package of string cheese.
When I looked at the date on the package, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it said December 2005. Now, it has not been 10 years since I’ve cleaned the refrigerator.
My younger son looked at it, and he didn’t think that was what the numbers meant. We got out the string cheese we’d just bought to compare.
We figured out that, heavens, no, the string cheese wasn’t from 2005. That would really be embarrassing. It was only from 2012.
I had to threaten my son within an inch of his life not to take a bite of it. Seriously. He’s 22 years old, and I had to treat him like he was 2. He was semi-joking, but he has inherited my husband’s vulture tendencies.
My husband came in and immediately started defending some of the things I’d thrown away.
“You got rid of all my mustard? Even your mother says mustard never goes bad,” he said.
“Tough — buy more,” I told him.
Then he said what I knew he would. “Hey, let’s make a rule — whoever eats something gets to decide when to throw it out.”
I said, “No, if you die, I’ll have to deal with your funeral, so I get to decide, too.”
When I finished cleaning, my husband had to admit our refrigerator looked nice, albeit a little empty.
I didn’t touch the freezer. I’m terrified of what I might find.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.