Sunday Scribblings: Fridge Space

Sorry for the delay; it was a gorgeous winter day and I took full advantage with a several-mile snowshoe hike. Anyway, here's your Sunday Scribblings:

Fridge Space

In the end, it wasn’t about winners or losers, lines of demarcation or any particular ideology one way or another – the carnage was just too great.
It was complete.
It was the eggs that fell first.
Taken to the back of the fridge, in the space under the Deli drawer, all confined, dark. The cardboard lid opened and each large AA cage-free brown egg was shot in the back of the shell, yoke and frothy whites and bits of shell fragment splattered on the carton’s nutritional information billboard. The carton was moved later to the wide open space on the middle shelf, like a head on a pike – a warning not heeded.
The eggs had pledged an alliance to dairy.
The meat – a cellophane-wrapped package of stew meat, butcher-paper wrapped pork chops, the turkey bacon and a frozen bag of chicken leg quarters (well-thawed) – began hostilities a little past midnight. The meat moved with the brutal efficiency of the German Blitzkrieg. And as was shown with the egg massacre, the meat had scant disregard for the rules of war.
Dairy had sought out alliances with the margarine, a container of orange juice, the fruits (the vegetables tried to remain neutral, but it wasn’t to be), two Tupperware containers of leftovers and a tube of “Big N’ Flaky” biscuits.
Skirmishes mostly, spillage, puddles, rings of bruised flesh into the protective plastic from where things were dropped from a series of aerial sorties. It was all the coalition could do to top meat’s march through the aquamarine-hued safety-glass shelves in the desiccated cool darkness of the Kenmore Pro 26 cubic foot side-by-side refrigerator (with its stainless profile and in-door crushed ice and water dispenser.
The coalition, near dawn on the third day of hostilities, managed to strike a blow to meat through several complex maneuvers and diversions to rip the plastic and paper wrap from the flesh; the dry air acted quick and merciless.
(Historical reference is missing from here.)
What is known is most horrific. Meat, shrunk and in the throws of spoilage – healthy red reduced to green-brown on the beef, slick speckles of white slime on the chicken and pork – unleashed the penicillium (the class of eurotiomycetes; the genus of ascomyceteous) thoughout the Kenmore.
Germ warfare; mold spoors.
Horror.
The penicillium proved most devastating to the coalition; it moved with an unblinking competence through the shelves. And then mutated.
Within hours, most every moist surface of the Kenmore was covered in a plush, cut-pile carpet of furry, green-gray mold.
It fell to the condiments in the door shelves – which maintained the right to sovereignty and neutrality throughout – to tell the story of war, the fight for fridge space.
The condiments: the ketchup, horseradish, capers, Dijon mustard, a large jar of Martini olives, all the salad dressings, both the kosher dill and sweet gherkin pickles, the bottle of Sriracha Thai chili sauce.
The very products protected by impervious screw lids and packed with preservatives; the last survivors in a senseless conflict between foodstuffs.

Comments

J.C. Montgomery said…
Absolutely diabolical. I love it! I have always wondered about the dangers inherent in cross-cantamination and at what lengths foodstuffs would take to achieve superiority. Now I know. There are no winners. Only survivors. It is up to me to ensure the lines are never crossed, and all have equal access to the space they deserve. Thank you. :D
You are hereby put on notice that you are not allowed within 10 (well, okay - 5) feet of my fridge from hereonout. I know you're the type of guy who pokes holes in the plastic wrap in expensive packages of filet mignons just for the evil thrill of it!

Loved this.
Tumblewords: said…
You've done it again! Good post....
Heather said…
So that's, how my fridge gets to be such a mess! I've always wondered what goes on in there...

Great post!
Chris said…
Oh...My...Gosh...that was hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You have a truly creative mind.
I like this! What a mayhem(no pun!) post!

spaced out
Fantastic post! I'm still laughing.
Cherie said…
Very funny, well done, the secret's out! Loved this!!

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