Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Cleaning the fridge of your subconscious

To continue in my vein of discussing boring things, I would like to take this moment to leap up on my soap box and proclaim that I cleaned out my fridge. It wasn’t a real “cleaning” I suppose. It was more of a search for the thing that smelled foul and was ruining my (halfhearted) appreciation of the sunny day. If you were wondering, indeed, if you are the sort of person who likes to hear disgusting things and stares into the sink as you wash your hands to observe the discolored water running off them, then I’ll indulge your curiosity. There were several rotting items in the fridge to which the smell might be attributed, but far and away the most pungent was a Tupperware of black beans.

So I cleaned out the fridge. I like to chuck out the moldy stuff whenever I go grocery shopping, because it freaks me out to think of the old lettuce rubbing elbows with the new, but that is a pretty wasteful practice. Now if you have wandered into this virtual-saloon before you know that I am no eco-soldier, I’m just a person campaigning against a bunch of people that suck atrociously. Often, but certainly not exclusively, people who are very wasteful suck. This isn’t a connection to be made between their empathy for good old mother earth and their fellow man; it’s more a signal of the fact that a person who is wasteful probably A) doesn’t recognize the value of things, B) possesses a great personal ease that grates on the nerves of less fortunate hermit-types, and C) drives a shiny sand-colored SUV. All three of these things are suggestive of jackassery without taking into account any detriment to the environment.

That being said, I like to throw things away. I find any kind of purging of possessions very cathartic, probably because I have mad hoarding tendencies. I hold onto shirts that don’t fit and have holes under the arms until throwing them away becomes a real production. I do this about twice a year with flannel pants. [Really, how can I have so many pairs? Between the free t-shirts (kept for sentimental value) and the pants, the drawer won’t close.] Some people get their jollies skydiving; I get mine from throwing away flannel pants that say “Sleepy head!” all over them.

(Speaking of flannel pants with things on them, I would like to pose a question. Why are people into the Tasmanian Devil character from Looney Tunes? He seems a frequent figure on flannel pants, the cheap kind that have a drawstring that will fuse into a solid-mass in the dryer and leave your pants knotted, forever, at an uncomfortable size. I’m not trying to showcase my provincial horizons, but my observations seem to suggest that the T.D. and that grumpy Martian are preferred by even the most hoodlum-y young adults. Is there some kind of inherent street-cred in Looney Tunes that I don’t know about?)

I’ve been thinking about cathartic things (like throwing pants away, if you lost my train of thought) a rather lot lately. 2010 has thus far been a somewhat gnarly year (with a few shining html-exceptions) for practically everyone that I know and we’ve been sharing notes on how to best cope. I do this – my rambling discussion with no hope of eventual gain – but not everyone has such a marvelously free and soothing hobby. And a person with no release can go a little crazy.

In short: We all have issues, but we don’t all have the extra flannel pants. This is potentially a problem.

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