I thought I’d walked into the wrong house. The problem was the kitchen. Sure, the counter tops were cleared of their normal clutter, but that had happened before when the cleaning crew was on the job.
This time it was the refrigerator. What was different was that I could see it. Everything that had been stuck to it for uncounted years was gone. I doubt we ever took a photo, picked up a business card or printed a cute saying that didn’t wind up on the doors of our fridge. It got so overloaded that every time I shut the door something fell off and had to be carefully slipped back under the magnet.
For a long moment I stood transfixed. It was white, a brilliant gleaming white. I had forgotten that. Moreover, the surface had a kind of muted basketball texture that gave it a luxurious richness. I’d forgotten that too.
“Fridge looks great,” I told my wife.
“It needed cleaning,” she said, stacking dishes into the dishwasher.
“How could you know?” I muttered under my breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. Looks good,” I said.
That’s when I noticed the table. It was covered to overflowing with photos, business cards and cute sayings. The bounty from the fridge.
“What are we going to do with this stuff?” I asked. She stopped, dish in hand and looked at me as though trying to understand the question.
“This stuff,” I said pointing to the table. “The things that were on the fridge.”
“Put them back,” she said with a shrug, “They go on the fridge.”
To be fair, there were a few items that neither my wife nor I could identify or recalled putting on the door in the first place. They didn’t make the cut.
And until next time, I’ll try to remember, the fridge is white.
