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I live in Palm Beach County in South Florida, and the most popular local morning radio show is "Moe and Sally in the Mornings," hosted by a black producer named Curtis. Moe and Sally have been married for a very long time. They make clever small talk in between songs, the calls from listeners and crazy contests. They like to find weird internet polls to respond to. Today they noted that only 36% of roommates or spouses admitted that they'd argued over how to load a dishwasher. That tells me that in 64% of households, only one person loads the dishwasher.
So I began to wonder about other kitchen chores, and the first one that came to mind was cleaning out the refrigerator. Surely that is a joint project. At least it is in our house. We tackle it together, but each takes individual pride in asking, "What the hell is this?" as we pull small Tupperware containers from the recesses of the unexplored crevices in that dank moldy machine.
What say you? How many small jars of sauces or condiments reside within your refrigerator door, and do you agree on how long you should keep them?
Discussion (69)
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My sister and her husband visited Dad and I for the 4th of July. She treated us to her cooking, which is pretty good. One of the meals was corned beef with a horseradish sauce that she concocted, and there's still a little container of what was left in the refrigerator. I really ought to pitch it.
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This made me chuckle. We have visitors throughout the summer and then through the November-December holiday season. As described so well in The Inevitable Guest, the contents of our refrigerators are unrecognizable at the end of the guest season. When the summer or the holidays are over, we take great delight in the rituals of cleaning them out and throwing away whatever we can't identify. :) :)
I need to digress here, and I hope it's okay.
I had never heard of pickleball until you talked about it on Ricochet.
Recently I watched two videos on YouTube about the growing popularity of pickleball in New England. The courts are springing up in residential neighborhoods.
This first five-minute video is about a lawsuit being waged against the owner of the court to make the owner install noise baffles. Apparently, living next door to one of these courts can be nerve racking after a while. I guess it sounds like and attracts a person's attention the way the original computer tennis game sounds did years ago:
Pickleball opponents seek noise relief (youtube.com)
[Note: I wrote the preceding paragraph about the lawsuit unclearly. I think pickleball is great. I think the lawsuit is silly. The only reason I posted the video was that the discussion in the video clip about the pickleball court existing in the heart of an old neighborhood was fascinating. I think it's wonderful that these courts can be put into existing neighborhoods. So to be clear: I am not against pickleball. I think it's great. I was only trying to say that the lawsuit caught my eye and in the discussion of it, I learned many fun and interesting things about the sport's popularity. :) ]
The second one is what made me think of you. It talks about how these pickleball courts are becoming the heart and soul of little communities of people. For some reason, the game attracts nice people like you who make friends with the people who show up to play:
Pickleball helping to create community (youtube.com)
Loneliness is a huge problem in our country. I can understand that we can't cure cancer, but this is a problem we should be able to do something about pretty easily. These pickleball courts are doing just that. :)
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I was introduced to pickleball in the summer of 1978 when, as a newly hired assistant attorney general, I and my wife were invited to a gathering of all the newbies and significant others (in the parlance of the times) for a picnic at the summer home of the then Attorney General Slade Gorton. He had a pickleball court etc. at the beachside family getaway on an island in Puget Sound. He claimed that he, along with pal former WA governor Dan Evans (just recently deceased at 92) and some other member of their group had invented the game. I played mixed doubles and it was lot of fun. We lost.
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We have a system on Garbage Day: I go around the house and collect what's in all the little garbage cans in the bedrooms, bathrooms, etc., and the wife does the refrigerator. Then we both take it out to the end of the driveway.
Oh, and I'm the only one qualified to load the dishwasher.
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What is in the refrigerator, where it goes, and how long it stays is entirely the domain of Mrs. Tabby. 1) She was entirely in charge of the kitchen for 40 years until I retired, when I am now allowed certain use of it as she does not wish to prepare lunch for me; and 2) I would no doubt be more lax than she is about allowing stuff to stay longer. She has learned that if she does NOT want me to eat something (she intends it for some specific meal) she needs to affix a very specific "do not eat" label. Nonetheless, if I were to dispose of some jar of something, I would no doubt pick the wrong jar, and dispose of something for which she had specific plans.
I will add stuff to the dishwasher, but only until it is about 80% full. Final object arrangement is another area that belongs entirely to Mrs. Tabby. I am however expected to empty the dishwasher most of the time.
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