Hard To Believe I'm Still Single

i must've been out that day because i totally missed the Life Class on How to Keep a Stocked Refrigerator.

i have absolutely no idea how people do it. it's baffling to me.

i mean, i would love to be able to be all dramatic and tragic and chalk this problem up to my having Food Issues, but that's just not the case. i honestly think it's more a matter of not knowing when i'll be home, or what i'll be in the mood to eat when i am, and not wanting to buy tons of stuff i'll just have to throw away.

because you know what the opposite of the photo below is?

it's having every single square inch of your fridge filled with food and condiments and leftovers that you will never, ever touch again...but that you don't throw out because that would be "wasteful."

of course, we need to be clear here. stuff accumulates in the fridge at first because throwing it out would be wasteful; eventually you don't throw it out because you're afraid that if you go to pick it up, it will show you that it's grown legs and is capable of actually running away from you.

and having perhaps maybe gone that route in my life maybe possibly, i now err on the side of going to the grocery and saying things like, "am i really going to eat this whole thing?" and if my answer is no, i don't buy it.

the exception to this rule is if i'm preparing to cook a meal for a special occasion (the special occasion usually being the fact that i am going to cook a meal). and then i will buy things i know i will probably not finish but definitely need.

and so you have what equates to the current state of my refrigerator.

and, well, the current state of my Single Older Chick-hood, as below:

1. i am not sure why i felt the need to ensure that the butter take up as little space as possible, since if it wanted to, the butter could spread itself across three refrigerator shelves and not run out of room. but there it is, compact on its side. allowing room for other groceries should they suddenly appear.
   
   for the record? i have no idea when i bought this butter. or why. i think it was for something i made for thanksgiving.
   
   i am not kidding.



2. this goat cheese i bought on a whim a few weeks ago, because i adore goat cheese. why i bought this kind instead of a fresher kind, i don't know. as i said, it was kind of an impulse purchase.
   
   some people impulse-buy people magazine. i impulse-buy chevre. whatev...re.
   
   
   
3. yes, well. this is in fact the boxed wine that Brian of the Boxed Wine brought to me as an early birthday present. in june. and i will have you know that i went home and opened it and drank -- over the course of several days -- most of it.
   
   but i'm not really sure how long boxed wine keeps once opened. so after about two weeks i decided i probably shouldn't drink any more of it.
   
   so why didn't you throw it away, then?
   
   good question. and um, well.
   
   the truth is, i didn't want to throw it away because it looks so good in my fridge. the box is big and elegant and takes up space that would otherwise be barren. every time i open my fridge door, it's as though the wine is saying to the rest of the full-fridge world, "hey! who needs groceries when you have invisible friends who buy you wine boxes?"
   
   and isn't that a nice thing for it to say?
   
   what? your boxed wine doesn't talk to you?
   
4. you would think that, given how easily accessible my fridge shelves are to clean, that i might, you know, clean them?
   
   i am pretty sure this spot is from the sangria i made for a party. last october.

anyway, assuming you are still reading this entry (because if reading about how completely insane i am with special regard for the paucity that is my fridge isn't a thrill-a-second, i don't know what is), i would like to take a few moments to point out that there are, in fact, additional items in my fridge door.

items that speak, in varying degrees, to the likelihood of my remaining single forever.

and so i give you now...

Exhibit A:

this is a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing.

i bought this dressing to go with the salad i made that accompanied the first full-fledged dinner i prepared in my then-new apartment. almost a year ago.

see, i decided to make an actual meal for TheBoy, because that's what girlfriends do, especially when they are proving that they actually can be incredibly skilled at domesticity if they really want to be.

and though i thought i'd done a pretty good job of pulling my act together, when i asked him how he'd liked the dinner, his response wasn't what i'd hoped.

me: so? what did you think?

TheBoy: um, it was good. [pause. pause.] i don't think you should do it again, though.

me: was it that bad?

TheBoy: no, it's not that. it was just...it seemed like an awful lot of work for you.

sigh.

guess my breezy elegance finds its way into my attempts at domesticity, too. only here instead of tripping and falling, it involves me being so out of my element making dinner that my boyfriend felt totally uncomfortable.

oh, and? speaking of breezy elegance...

Exhibit B:

this is a bottle of classic vinaigrette salad dressing.

i bought this dressing to go with the salad i made that accompanied the second full-fledged dinner i prepared in my apartment. about five months later.

this time, i invited TheBoy, el_gallo, and DG for dinner on the idea that it wouldn't be too hard if i just made a fondue. and mostly it wouldn't have been, except for that fucking breezy elegance (again) which crept in at the last minute. somewhere around the time i realized i needed to remove the steaming broccoli from the stove but don't actually own potholders.

which would be the same time i oh-so-breezily decided to improvise and just use my dish towel.

which would be the time i set the dish towel on fire.

i did manage to put the fire out, but had to throw the broccoli away. you don't need to be a domestic goddess to know that if your broccoli's so mushy you need a spoon to pick it up, you probably shouldn't.

um. anyway, getting back to our point, i haven't thrown these bottles away yet because...

actually, i don't know why i haven't thrown them out, but here's a picture of what Classic Vinaigrette dressing looks like after a few months:

moving on.

Exhibit C:

this is a bottle of Rose's Lime Juice. it is one of the limited items in my fridge that i will now refer to as Active Groceries ("Active Groceries" = groceries that are not expired and are consumed with any sort of regularity).

granted, it's an Active Grocery only because i also have vodka in the freezer. but whatever.

Exhibit D:

just when maybe you thought i couldn't show more evidence of having the World's Most Man-Repellant Fridge, we come to this.

this is a bottle of water i keep in the fridge and refill regularly from my filtered tap.

but not for me.

it's for my cats.

Exhibit E:

this is the second Active Grocery in my fridge. it is a bottle of horseradish sauce that i keep because if i could i would put horseradish sauce on pretty much everything.


and there you have it -- the reason the guy at the indian food restaurant knows me so well...