The ‘Guardian’ Digs Deep For #FirstWorldProblems…

Oh, the awful burden that is….the fridge!?

As I may have mentioned before, I feel bad about my fridge, and not only because its ice box needs defrosting so very badly (as I write, its sole occupant is a single Magnum ice cream; it lies there in some state, like Tutankhamun in his tomb). I can trace far too many bad habits back to the lure of its humming spaces, not least my shameful tendency to buy more fruit and vegetables than we can ever use in a single week (the certain knowledge that the stuff in my fridge won’t keep forever seems to be in permanent conflict with my feeling that its shelves are unhelpfully bare). My view of bagged salads are, for instance, that they’re a poxy rip-off and to be avoided at all costs – and yet, there is always one day in the month when, pathetically, I give in and buy one. Or take cheese and tomatoes. Again and again, I tell myself it’s stupid to put either in the fridge: what passes for our cellar will do for the cheese, and the tomatoes should be allowed to bask in a bowl by the window. But then my confidence will wobble – I blame the stupid “hygiene” lessons we had at school – and they’re promptly dispatched to the fridge, the better to lose, overnight, every last bit of their flavour.

Life is hard when you’re a progressive.