# Cleaning out the fridge: what's the freakiest thing you've found? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 29, 2014, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310 "2014-07-29T08:41:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![diggerwam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/919ad9/32.png) [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/21 "2014-07-30T01:27:44Z")
My sister had a brain tumor and had surgery in Aug 2008. Full recovery but my other sister and I cleaned up her apartment while she was in the hospital. Good Lord how did she live like that?? Worst was the bottomless crisper drawers. She’d buy veg. Not eat it. Then buy veg. Rinse and repeat. Never threw the old stuff out. Wow was that experience nasty. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/22 "2014-07-30T01:41:26Z")
A vial of Berry Gordy’s blood. I once knew someone who was a healthcare worker in a hospital where Gordy was hospitalized. Yada yada yada, they got me a vial of his blood. I kept in in my fridge for a couple of years, then finally threw it out. What do I win? ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/23 "2014-07-30T01:44:13Z")
A 14 month old chunk of feta still sealed in it’s original container and still submerged in brine. It was quite good, I finished it off in about a week. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/24 "2014-07-30T01:45:21Z")
About ten years ago, after my mom’s first major stroke, my sister and I were helping Dad get the kitchen sorted out for him to take over. In addition to outdated canned goods, umpteen kajillion margarine tubs and a lifetime supply of saran wrap, we found some frightening things in the chest freezer. :eek: Mom had just put stuff in on the top and not rotated anything. There were peaches from 1989 (Sis had helped put them up right out of college), blue gills that a neighbor had caught, cleaned and brought over (he was a couple of years deceasedat the time), sixteen loaves of bread and homemade noodles that had disintegrated into flour. It’s a small wonder that she and my father didn’t succumb to food poisoning. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/25 "2014-07-30T04:57:00Z")
I think **OneCentStamp** wins the Gag Factor Award! :eek: :eek: :eek: **Fear Itself** , for the uninitiated, who is Berry Gordy? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/26 "2014-07-30T05:25:11Z")
Could be meat. Could be cake. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/27 "2014-07-30T11:30:26Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I think **OneCentStamp** wins the Gag Factor Award! :eek: :eek: :eek: > **Fear Itself** , for the uninitiated, who is Berry Gordy? Record producer who founded Motown Records, creating The Motown Sound by signing such artists as Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Commodores, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/28 "2014-07-30T12:30:47Z")
…a number of whom have actually been the freakiest thing found in a fridge. Can’t we tell happy fridge stories? I was going to clean mine tomorrow, but now I’m too frightened. And especially curse you, **OneCentStamp**. Except you did stop me having a biscuit. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/29 "2014-07-30T13:28:18Z")
Once I was cleaning out the refrigerator and opened up a random tupperware container to find a human face inside of it. After I screamed for what felt like several hours I calmed down enough to realize that it was actually the face from a baby doll that my roommate had won in a crane game at wal-mart. She and her boyfriend apparently decided it would be hilarious to rip the face off and hide it somewhere for me to find. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/30 "2014-07-30T14:59:01Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > A 14 month old chunk of feta still sealed in it’s original container and still submerged in brine. > It was quite good, I finished it off in about a week. The brine is a preservative, that should have been fine even if it hadn’t been refrigerated. > [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > Can’t we tell happy fridge stories? I was going to clean mine tomorrow, but now I’m too frightened. Here, a little happy fridge story. The fridge at Grandma’s used to get iced up pretty fast. The seal was working OK as far as I could tell. I rent the place (Grandma now lives in an old folks’ home nearby) and my mother will sometimes be there while I happen to be away on business. One day I get home. Open the fridge. The salt is there. 😕. The big pot with cooking salt, you know? Not a salt shaker, or a bag of salt, but the salt box where you put salt and then you use it by the spoonful for cooking. It’s there, propped open. It being 1am, I said “boy am I going to be busy trying to figure this one out in the morning,” closed the fridge back up and went to consult my pillow. Next morning I’m on the phone with my mother and I suddenly realize, there is a relatively low amount of ice on the fridge’s walls. So I ask “by the way, Mom, the salt in the fridge, is it because of the humidity?” “Yes! I realized, since the seal is actually OK, it was probably a problem with the air in Barcelona being so humid! And salt sucks water, right? I think it was working!” “Good idea. I think I have a better one, though: rice!” “:smack: Oy!” Rice is more hygroscopic than water; it’s traditional to add a few grains to salt shakers in order to keep the salt from clumping up. So now you know why, if you open my fridge, you’ll see a jar with rice. It’s not that I think rice needs refrigeration, it’s there to keep the fridge’s walls relatively clear of ice. And it works! ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/31 "2014-07-30T15:39:27Z")
Like **OneCentStamp** , I learned the hurricane fridge lesson the hard way. And even after I experienced the horror of the hurricane fridge, I went to work and opened the chest freezer where they stored cases of squid (used to feed the rays at [Stingray City](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_City,_Grand_Cayman)). That freezer sat closed, in tropical heat, with no power for at least three months. Maybe I had not really learned my lesson with the fridge. But one should never open a hurricane freezer thought to hold more than 50 pounds of raw squid. Gratefully, one of the boat captains had stopped by a day or two after the storm and threw the squid in the sea. He just didn’t tell anyone. If only he had left the freezer lid propped open it would have been better and we wouldn’t have played out the situation like something from [The Thing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%281982_film%29). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/32 "2014-07-30T15:40:41Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > The power in my neighborhood went down that very day, and stayed down for two weeks. > > I was gone for a week. Houston was 95 degrees and 95 percent humidity the whole time I was gone. > > When I got back, the power was still out. From what I understand, having grown up in Houston, and having my family hail originally from Galveston, the proper response to dealing with a fridge after a power outage like that is just to strap the entire thing up so it doesn’t open, and take it to the landfill in its entirety. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310/33 "2014-07-30T16:28:44Z")
> [@bump](#): > > From what I understand, having grown up in Houston, and having my family hail originally from Galveston, the proper response to dealing with a fridge after a power outage like that is just to strap the entire thing up so it doesn’t open, and take it to the landfill in its entirety. In hindsight, this would have been the best course of action. I blame my not being from Texas originally. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cleaning-out-the-fridge-whats-the-freakiest-thing-youve-found/694310.md?page=1)