home is where the mess is
/Whenever I leave the house on a trip, I leave written instructions for Ray. Water the plants Friday, grab fruit at the farm market Saturday, pick up the dead branches blocking the front door, the ones you’re stepping over. I try to be specific.
If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t exist.
After one trip, I entered a kitchen that smelled like a dozen females were having an intimate biological infection. That’s the nicest way I can say it because this isn’t a girls’ lunch.
Ray’s list didn’t include every germ that could grow in a petri dish so I hold myself responsible. Though in my defense, I’d suggested if the fridge were opened now and again, it might be a good idea to throw out any sour milk, soggy greens, or oozing tomatoes that happened to crawl forward.
I meant to imply if an unusual rainbow of colors appeared behind those chilly metal doors—white foam, blue-black fuzz, green slime—please jump into action.
I should have written these exact words: “Bury your dead.”
I have a great partner in the house so I shouldn’t complain, besides it opens a whole can of worms, and I’ve yet to find any of those in the cheese drawer. I’m also committed to never dividing issues based on men versus women. I find it childish, overdone, boring, unfair, sexist, and generally untrue.
Though once in a while I wish these guys would open their eyes.
I’ve become even more vigilant about any organic festering because of a slew of E. coli outbreaks involving lettuce. I’ve been reminded not everything natural and plucky is good for us, even if it has lots of vitamins B and C along with gut-wrenching dysentery.
The E. coli issue sent me on a research rampage in which I discovered not everything tucked in the fridge is harmless, either. Lots of bacteria can grow in the icy climate of your home tundra, strange so-called psychrophiles lazing on the shelves, hiding behind the pineapple juice, making themselves comfy in your safe haven.
This cold-loving crud, maybe the weirdest poison on the planet, is also found in the glaciers of the Arctic and Antarctica. Heat-loving germs I understand; everything wants to spread out and proliferate when it’s hot. But these cold suckers are way outside my comfort zone on every level.
I don’t want to alarm you, but occasionally, you should get out the crampons and do a little exploration in your way-back forty to see if any glaciers are forming in there. Maybe you’re even harboring a seal or a puffin.
Yet in all fairness, each time I leave the house, I notice the guy who must survive on Cheerios while I’m gone tries even harder not to let some silly oversight ruin our happy homecoming. And how could he remember Brussels sprouts, which he shuns, are not plant bulbs meant to be watered?
It wasn’t on the list.
But to his credit, while I was away on a yoga retreat getting into the headspace I would need to enter the house, the refrigerator was filled up, even if it was covering up some pretty dicey items. In fact, while I was gone, we’d acquired six large onions and a dozen shiny Honeycrisps, because he’d forgotten he’d already bought them.
These new additions made me feel better. Some cultures believe onions have medicinal properties that could cure what ails you and maybe even give a creepy psychrophile a scary moment.
And certainly, I don’t need to tell you about the health benefits of an apple a day. I’ve heard they even keep the puffins away.