Frozen in time

I gotta stop putting off addressing my refrigerator problem.

You see, I figure if I just keeping papering the door with Keith Richards pinups, eventually the fridge will disappear behind the clutter and I'll forget that the fridge is even there.

The problem with it is that the thing hogs space in my kitchen, and for no good reason. I open my fridge just twice a day, early in the morning and at supper time, when I grab a cold bottle of water to pour down my G-tube.

You'd think that the shelves of a fridge owned by a single guy who eats through a G-tube would be bare. Since last December, Isosource has been the only substance that I use for food, and I keep that at room temperature. Oddly, my refrigerator is packed, mostly with food that I was gumming late last fall after chewing and swallowing became too much of a challenge.

I guess you could say that I'm frapathetic: I just can't be bothered to toss out the crap in my fridge that I no longer need, which is virtually everything on its shelves.

So allow me to play Carol Merrill and show you what's inside my fridge. Besides the chilled drinking water that I already mentioned, and some cobwebs, here is what's stocked in my fridge:

• 1 packet of Fig Newtons
  
• 1 10 oz. can of Campbell's Tomato Soup
  
• 14 packets of Quaker instant oatmeal
  
• 6 servings of Mott's applesauce
  
• 1 stick of Blue Bonnet butter
  
• 1 package microwave popcorn
  
• 64 oz. container of prune juice
  
• 1 liter of Diet Coke Zero
  
• 8 containers of Jell-O pudding
  
• 1 of package of Christmas potpourri
  
• 1 bottle of Grateful Dead Un-Wine
  
• 2 bottles of apple juice
  
• 1 jar of tupelo honey
  
• 16 oz. Skippy peanut butter
  
• 20 oz. bottle of Sprite
  
• 2 8.4 oz. cans of IZZE sparkling beverages
  
• Several bottles of HIV meds I stopped taking years ago
  
• 1 FUJI disposable camera
  
• 1 box denture cleanser tablets
  

I suppose that the prune juice may come in handy the next time I experience internal plumbing "issues," and I hope that my denture cleanser tablets will spring back into action some day, if I ever am able to get my dentures back into my mouth. But barring those exceptions, there's nothing in my fridge that I expect to need anytime soon, or could not store more efficiently at room temperature.

For now, my fridge is just a time capsule from November 2008, and a surface where I can throw my magnet collection. I really should unplug the damn thing and clear its shelves.

And invite my neighbors to my place for a prune juice and oatmeal Labor Day blow-out.