I had this impression of myself as a tidy and organized person until I opened my refrigerator today morning. Bachelors who stay alone are often compared to animals without a master. I must admit I too have adapted to that kind of a life pretty sooner than I started staying alone and the pleasures of it are unbelievable. But I got a shock when I opened my fridge to get milk for my tea today.
Usually I’ll jus get my milk and close it without even bothering to check what else I have in it. But today I noticed that there were too many vessels in there, all covered with a lid which aroused my curiosity to know what I had in them.
To satiate my curiosity, I stared at the bowls and randomly chose one and picked it up. I opened the lid to find a ‘dal’ curry which I thought hard for a minute and recognized was from a nearby canteen. I had bought it a week back and it had gone bad for sure. It hadn’t started stinking yet. Thanking all the Gods I knew, I forced the goop of slop into a plastic cover and flung the bowl into the kitchen sink. Phew! That wasn’t so bad.
Continuing my exercise, I picked up the next bowl and carefully opened the lid. I quickly realized it was the stir fried vegetables I had made myself when my brother was here for a week. Now which week exactly was he here???? Last?? The one before that?? I think yes, he was here two weeks ago!!… hmmmm this task was not getting better. I tried to slowly scrape off the veggies stuck to the bottom of the bowl with a fork; all the while remembering how badly I had tortured my poor little bro with this crazy experiment of mine. Anyway I managed to empty all my hard work into the same old plastic bag.
The next bowl I took was pretty interesting and different from the first two for the mere fact that I couldn’t recognize what was in it even after staring at the ceiling and thinking hard for five long minutes. There was this soft, uniform and web-like white layer of fungus growing on whatever the bowl contained. Admiring the white cottony layer, I poked into it with a fork to know what it actually was. To my surprise it was the chapati dough that was kneaded, I don’t remember when but seeing the looks of it, probably a month back! And it had stuck to the bowl so hard that I even bent my fork trying to get it out.
The next bowl I took out had rice in it. Now who would’ve known rice could go bad. The rice which was white when I’d made it had turned yellow now and I dint bother to remember when I’d made it. I overturned it into the bag and noticed that there was a yellow slime too at the bottom. Now, let me tell you that stank real bad. ! I said to myself… “Endurance dear .. Endurance”.
Finally, I decided I had had enough and decided not to open any more mysterious bowls today. I checked the fruits cabin and found 2 dead bananas which were yellow when I’d bought them, turned from brown to black over the course of the week. I sadly picked it up and threw it away. There was a mango in it which was still in the process of rotting. So I let it stay until it fully goes bad. I don’t intend to change, people… :D
After this heartbreaking exercise of emptying the fridge, I thought to myself, this is why I need my clean-freak mom to visit me once in a while. But if she had seen the refrigerator today, I’m sure she would’ve freaked out and probably sued me for the kitchen-crime I had committed. She keeps telling me what an animal I am but I never used to agree with her.
But today, Amma, you’re right.
You always have been!!
