Wild hairs

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Three weeks ago, our freezer was crammed with stuff. Y’know that move you do where something is slipping out, so you push it back and slam the freezer door really fast? We had that going on. It wasn’t on purpose; it’s just the slow accumulation of food we didn’t get around to eating before putting something else on top of it. After a couple of years, we no longer knew what was buried in the far back. We knew we had to get around to cleaning it out eventually, but it was just easier to ignore it from day to day.

So one day, we got back from the grocery store, and we had something to go into the freezer. I opened it cautiously, and I was attacked by a bag of frozen peas and a box of some sort of pastry. My wife is standing next to me, watching me holding back the pile so it can’t become an avalanche.

And then, suddenly, I was a man possessed.

I started grabbing things and handing them to my wife to throw away. I didn’t say anything, I just snatched and held out bag after box. At first, she wasn’t sure what I was doing, but she rolled with it and helped me work through the freezer-burned chicken breasts and dessicated Trader Joe’s eggplant meals and heavily frosted pasta shells and everything else. She wasn’t happy about it, necessarily, because I hadn’t warned her at all and that wasn’t what she wanted to be doing at that moment, but I think she recognized the demon that had gotten into me and decided not to object. (Thanks, sweetie.)

Half an hour later, we had a cold and full garbage can, and a cold and mostly empty freezer.

I have no idea what got into me. It was like something snapped, and for unknown reasons the most important thing in the world was to get all that crap out of the freezer once and for all. It was pretty strange, and I was sheepish and apologetic afterward when my wife teased me about suddenly springing this unpleasantness on her with no obvious justification. I’m happy the freezer is back under control, but it was really weird. I had, as indicated by the thread title, gotten a sudden “wild hair” (or, as my first stepmother would elaborate, a “wild hair up my ass”). Needless to say, that isn’t normal behavior for me.

Mundane and pointless… and I can’t be the only one this happens to. Right? :slight_smile:

2

This is a common behaviour among habitual procrastinators. Habitual procrastinators, knowing something must be done prior to a deadline will wait until the last possible moment before beginning the task. In the absence of an actual deadline, the urge to suddenly, completely and irrevocably start the task and see it through to completion without stopping can hit without warning.

3

You’re not alone, Cervaise. I have a high tolerance (too high, if you ask my wife) for clutter. But once in a long while something snaps and it’s Katie bar the door. I’ll go into a wild cleaning whirlwind that is a sight to behold. Anyone who dares get too close is sucked in and not released until the goal is accomplished. Everything will be spic and span when I (we) get through. Then it’s back to normal until the next wild hair. Maybe it’s a guy thing.

4

Nope, it’s not just a guy thing. Something very similar happened to us this evening–I went to put leftovers in the fridge (only my husband eats leftovers), and couldn’t find a space. Twenty minutes later, the fridge was cleaned out everything but that day’s groceries and that evening’s leftovers. There was stuff in there from 3 months ago. (I recognized the container, not the contents–did you know sweetened condensed milk turns green and hard eventually?) I probably will keep it clean for a few days, then stuff will start piling up again. My husband came into the kitchen to see what was taking so long and was nearly knocked over by the smell. Don’t know why I didn’t do it before, or why I had to suddenly do it all at once. Maybe it’s a fridge thing…

5

Wow, I’m in the midst of that right now! Actually I’m taking a break for a second but my mom is visiting tomorrow and the kids this weekend might be having friends over so I’m on a cleaning whirlwind. I bought paper towels and garbage bags and there might not be any left by the time I’m done :slight_smile:

6

Moving this to MPSIMS, per request of OP.

7

What? Me, a habitual procrastinator? I may need to take issue with this.

I’ll decide tomorrow. Maybe.

:stuck_out_tongue: