the smell

There is a smell in my refrigerator, and I cannot locate the source. I've removed all the milk products, suspecting an aging batch; I've thrown out all the cheeses and all the half-used canned items that I stuck in there some months ago, thinking at the time that I didn't want to throw out perfectly good food that might prove useful one day. The food never did get used. But it is all gone now, and still there is that smell.

At the moment the smell has become something of a metaphor for the unclean debris that piles up in one's life from time to time. I'm feeling the weight of that debris heavily right now, when I've just picked up two sets of midterms, a batch of seminar papers, and electronically solicited some forty weekly assignments that have yet to be graded. That's a lot of debris I'm hauling around. Though as far as I know it doesn't stink--yet.

Maybe I should thank the smell, since it prevents me from opening my refrigerator too often. Opening a refrigerator, we all know, is just another advanced procrastination technique. We look in there hoping for something tasty to distract us from whatever humdrum task it is that needs to be done. There seldom is anything all that tasty in there. I make sure of that, by leaving my leftovers for weeks at a time, until they become stinky.

If I am able to get my refrigerator clean--and that is a big if, since I've now filled several grocery bags full of food to be discarded and yet still the smell remains--I vow to make sure the detritus does not pile up again. I like being able to look in my refrigerator. I like smelling things that I actually might want to eat one day. It's such an unpleasant part of life, having a stinky fridge.

Tomorrow I will clean it systematically, going through item by item, and wiping it down, shelf by shelf. And then I will keep it clean.

But first, tonight, I have to grade some papers.