No Carrots were harmed during the writing of this post!

Anyone remember those old commercials for Easy-Off Oven Cleaner where a woman is sunning herself on the beach with a book or working a crossword puzzle and then looks directly at the camera and says, "I'm cleaning my oven right now"? (Because the spray-on stuff was busy dissolving the last traces of enchilada splatter from the interior of her oven.) I could have starred in one of those advertisements yesterday, while I working and doing all manner of grown-up working mom stuff, I was also--apparently-- making soup. AND I was making that soup in my refrigerator. It was cold and made of vegetables. Many kinds of vegetables. Sounds deliciously gourmet, no?

Unfortunately, I was unaware that I was creating said soup until I opened my refrigerator and tried to find a place to put my bags of salad. I pushed aside the leftover macaroni and cheese that I made for Father’s Day (it was really good too)along with the yogurt and the cheese and the two gallons of milk. Still, I could not create enough space for my salad bags and so, as a last resort I pulled open the drawer of the rotter crisper where I never, ever think to put anything only to discover that I had indeed been storing plastic bags of cilantro, celery, spinach and mushrooms. Unfortunately, none of the above were technically recognizable as the items I had obviously purchased weeks? months? ago and shoved into the darkened maw of the COMPARTMENT WHERE CORN GOES TO DIE. Based on the blue fuzz peeking from the plastic, it was clear some of them hadn't shaved in weeks, though I promise I'm not judging. It was probably pretty gruesome...you know...there at the end. But I now realize that I did put them there and after lonely days in the dark they sort of collapsed into themselves and marinated together...separated only by the thin plastic bags containing them...and then eventually leaking into a chilly, gray pool in the bottom of the drawer. Soup anyone?

Oh...the shame.

I'm a busy woman, internets. A busy woman who, as I've written here before, spends many (hundreds! thousands!millio never mind) hours every week buying food and whatnot for the family only to return again and again to the same place to purchase the same food over and over. It gets old, you know? Sure, I have lofty goals of forcing my family to eat more vegetables and, toward that end, I buy stuff. Green stuff. And I put it into the rotter crisper for it's own good (to keep things fresh and...uh...you know....crispy) and then...I forget about it. I blame myself.

I also blame the fact that our refrigerator hasn't had a light in it in over year. No, I'm not too lazy to change the bulb. There is, in fact, no bulb. Not since it sort of exploded one day and shot sparks everywhere and then made a smoky, burning kind of smell that was pretty awful.

And then it went away so everything was back to normal. Only...darker.

In the meantime, I manage just fine. I've learned to locate things by feel (I saw "The Miracle Worker" twice!) and that's working for me okay. I know the big white things are gallons of milk and the long, styrofoam containers have eggs in them and, of course, I know exactly where the diet coke is (although I really am trying to give that up Sandy). In a pinch, I turn on the kitchen light I can still see everything stored in the very front of the refrigerator, and if I need to I can grab a stick and rattle stuff around in the back until something spills and identifies itself.

After opening my refrigerator door at Christmas, a friend from Relief Society (whose need for order is so obsessive compulsively acute that I suspect she alphabetizes her Pop-Tarts...or possibly...groups them into fruit families) surveyed the devastation and said, "Hey, you need to clean this thing." Did I mention how insanely acute her powers of observation are? A mild understatement, I admit.

Yes. Yes, I do. Either that or buy tougher vegetables. But I'm surviving here in the dark just fine. Besides...I have it on good authority that I do some of my best work there. I'm just sayin'.