I hate cleaning a fridge. No specific reason; I just do. Always have. They are generally fiddly things to clean1, with all sorts of crevices and dinky corners where crumbs gather, so that is probably a big part of it. Whatever, since I hate doing it, I don’t do it anywhere near as often as I should. I mean, I wipe the fingerprints off the front or clean up anything that might spill inside when it happens, but actually taking out the drawers, etc., and giving it a good clean? Nope. In fact, I had (embarrassingly) never truly cleaned my fancy Bosch French-door fridge since I got it. Years ago.
When the Ex left, I did go through it and clean out some of its contents. For example, there were jars of sauces and condiments that I was never going to touch, so out they went. And I reorganized things a bit since there was new space available2. But a real cleaning? Nope.
Every day I would open it and think I really need to get off my ass and clean the fridge. Then, with the closing of the door, the cleaning idea would go poof.
Over and over and over.
Then, oddly, the other day and for no apparent reason whatsoever, I opened the fridge and, as if on autopilot, removed the large plastic drawer at the bottom of the main fridge (the part with the side-by-side doors); the one that goes the whole width of the fridge and had traditionally held the Ex’ extensive fruit supply; the one which had since sat mostly fallow except for a few shriveled up bits of what must have been stems or leaves, that big drawer I removed and (gasp!) washed. Then I washed the space where it resides in the fridge. And then I replaced it.
It looked lovely. Empty still, but sparkling clean.
Having made a clean spot, I had no choice: I had to clean the fridge.
Wisely, perhaps, I did it over a few days. The fridge has an alarm beep if one leaves it open for too long and that was my limit. I would clean what I could inside, before it started yelling at me. Nothing more than a moist microfiber cloth and gentle soap. Move items, wipe down, hear the beep and close up; come back later and repeat.
The removable drawers and various holders were not time-limited since, duh, they are removable. But even those I did in chunks: left door…right door… movable interior holder thingies3. I finished with the separate vegetable drawer and its plastic bins.
Nothing was gross. No what the hell is that sticky stuff in that corner appeared. No scrubbing was required. A good wiping with the soapy microfiber and then drying with a clean cloth; that’s it. And, I will give it to Bosch: the design made it much easier to clean. Somehow those Germans figured out how to avoid the nasty crevices with which previous fridges had vexed me. Getting things in and out was easy. I didn’t ever have to contort myself or wish for an additional joint somewhere between the elbow and the shoulder so that I could reach that one spot… Nope. All was easily accessible.
Before I knew it, it was done. Clean. Looking practically new inside (and out).
It felt like a trick. Too easy.
This thing I had dreaded and avoided was, in the end, no big deal at all.
Of course, there’s a life metaphor in that. Many of us humans are spectacularly good at avoiding things we have told ourselves are hard, or scary, or which touch on some similar things that previously had not-so-great outcomes. Usually, whatever we were trying to avoid turns out much better than we feared.
Which makes me think: if cleaning the fridge went this well, maybe I should try dating again.
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- And, back in the day, defrosting a freezer was a nightmare on tope of the fridge being bad enough to deal with. ↩︎
- He is a Type 1 diabetic, so there were lots of boxes of insulin pens and the like that took up more space than you would think. ↩︎
- This fridge came with all sorts of moveable/adjustable mini-shelves and holders. ↩︎