So this morning I went back into the lunchroom to stick my lunch in the fridge. I was hit by a sour smell, and noticed three cartons of coffee creamer from a few weeks ago. Okay, ick, but we can deal with it. I had to go and start, so I couldn’t dispose of them properly (dump them out in the slop sink and all that), so I figured I’d do it on my lunch break.
Well, we were far too busy for me to take a break, so I had to eat at my desk. I went back to get my lunch, and noticed the big gallon milk.
From August.
What the fucking HELL? Usually I leave my lunch across the street at the main building, but what with Bodies and all, it’s just too busy for me to take a break, as I said.
A coworker informed me that that fridge belongs to the outreach group-the ones who travel to schools to do assemblies. Even so, WHY DON’T THEY CLEAN OUT THE FUCKING FRIDGE?
I was informed that there’s another one in the back office. Thank a non-sectarian god for that.
This is the first time I used this particular fridge. The one back at the main building that I always use is clean, except for a few water bottles. (And the freezer section badly needs defrosted. But nothing stinky.)
Ah, right, OK. Your post made it sound like you used it regularly.
And I suppose I’m being nonchalant, at one time living in a house where an 18-month-old carton of milk was found. Best thing was, being (supposedly) poor students, the owner’s name was scrawled on the label. It was tempting to give it back to him, at his new address.
My father-in-law bought a house about five years ago with an old style refrigerator in the basement (freezer inside the fridge). The freezer was a solid block of ice; it was just the build-up of frost, perhaps twenty years worth. When I moved into the basement with my (now) wife, we decided to chip out the ice so we could have our own fridge/freezer. We discovered an old butter tub with leftovers in it: twenty-year-old leftovers. I looked at them in curiosity; I wish I hadn’t.
Yeah, like I said, I planned on tossing out the creamer this morning, but I didn’t get the chance.
The milk? Personally, I wasn’t about to. Like I was told, it’s mostly used by a group who travels to assemblies at schools. I’d tell them to clean out their own fucking fridge first.
The worst thing about the fridge in my area is that the freezer section is completely frozen over. There are two boxes of Lean Cuisines permantly frozen in there, but at least they’re not stinking up the rest of it. (It’s a little mini fridge). fachverwirrt, you cannot just leave a little anecdote like that-DETAILS!!!
One of my coworkers worked at the Andy Warhold Museum a few years ago. She said he had boxes and boxes of “time capsuls” filled with various things. Including a forty-year old box of chocolates.
Well, it was, um, gray. I have no idea what it was originally. It was like a big mound of pure mold. I have no idea if mold can grow in a freezer, but if it can, that’s what twenty years of mold would look like.
We have a good system in our building: the cleaning crew, as part of their contract, cleans the refrigerators once a month - emptying them out, throwing away the contents, and then doing the actual cleaning. If you go home on the last Friday of the month, and you’ve left anything in the fridge, it’ll be gone on Monday morning.
Biology experiments are still possible, but their duration is limited.
I have taken it on myself to clean our fridge at work.
There is a sign on it that says everything will be thrown away at end of business on Fridays, but they haven’t been. No one really pays attention to the sign.
The smell is not overpowering but it is…evil. So sent eveyone an e-mail telling them I was taking contol and to take home anything they wanted to keep. There was a little resistance, but I was determined. I tossed EVERYTHING, even in the freezer. Then I pulled out all shelves and washed them. I cleaned the walls with 409.
People should not put in anything in the fridge that is in a grocery bag. If it’s in a grocery bag, people forget about it. It becomes anonymous. No one every opens the bag again. And some people seem incapable of throwing anything out. That last little portion of your lunch from El Taco Grande is techically still edible, but everyone but you knows no one is going to eat it. Why can’t you just throw it in the trash can instead of the fridge??
Now I have to share. I lived in the same dorm as The Milk and knew its original purchaser. When The Milk won UMOC (Ugliest Manifestation On Campus) four years ago it was nine years old. It’s still around. I haven’t attended one lately, but I think the floor still holds a birthday party for it every year.
One thing that will neither solve the problem, or really create justice, but is nonetheless fun: Keep the old milk in the back of the fridge, until you see someone has brought in new milk. Pour some of the old milk into the new milk. Watch the fun as someone finds out they got free chunks in their milk! Hooray!
Try a nearly full four-litre tub of ice cream which had been left in a switched-off fridge in a hot fibre-board and tin-roofed garage over an entire Australian summer.
I don’t want to leave you guessing, but there are no words in the English language for the smell. The sight of it was just what you’d expect - dark primordial goo with huge green fuzz. But the smell…
