When I got my apartment, I was really only concerned with getting in as soon as possible, and living close to where I work. I live a 4 minute drive from my office (or a 20 minute walk from my door to my desk) and I was able to move in in less than a week.
Though I was really not keen to be back into an apartment again, the situation was dictated to me. Frankly, I really lucked into my situation here, although I was unaware of it at the time. I have many advantages here. First, my apartment is on the third floor, which means that there is no one above me stomping around. Second, my apartment is on the far north east corner of the building, meaning that I only have a neighbor on one wall, and I don’t get any sun directly heating my apartment to sauna like proportions every afternoon. Plus, I’m on the far back side of the complex, which means if you look out every window I have, you don’t see any other apartment buildings. So, I can almost imagine looking out over the tree filled corporate parks behind me that I’m in a high priced condo or something.
I also lucked out with the parking situation. Any of you who have lived in a large complex knows that parking is always a pain in the ass. In this place, each apartment gets one covered parking spot. Pretty standard. However, my spot is directly at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment. I didn’t realize how good that was until I saw my neighbor leave his apartment the other day, and have to walk clear across the parking lot to his assigned place (about 60 yards away). I guess its not a huge deal, but when you’re lugging bags of groceries or something, its nice to park close.
However, the most amazing and perplexing ‘feature’ of this apartment is my apparently magic fridge. Let me explain. I am obviously a re-newly formed bachelor. Yes, I do fall into some of the stereotypes. I admit it.
Long time readers might remember my early eating/cooking adventures after the bomb was dropped. The first meal I cooked was 5 weeks after I moved in, I whipped up some tacos to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Well, I had all the fixin’s. Meat, lettuce, shredded cheese, refried beans, tomatoes, salsa, etc etc. I think you can see where I’m going here. The cheese and beans have remained in the fridge since that very day. Unused. Uneaten. Not even looked at. Needless to say, when you only have beer, pepsi and ketchup, you aren’t hurting for extra fridge space. So, they just hung out. I finally did something about them this past week, nearly 4 whole months later. Normally, these things should have sprouted legs and made a break for it long ago. However, something magic happened. The cheese, I bought one of those pre-shredded bags of ‘mexican’ cheese with the zip close top. When I pulled it out, it looked as fresh as new. Not one speck of green anywhere in there. If you were to put it back on the shelf, you couldn’t tell the difference. I was astounded. You would think it was never opened. Of course, I still threw it away. I wasn’t taking any chances.
Perhaps even more astounding was the refried beans. They were in a pyrex bowl with plastic wrap over them. Not exactly hermetically sealed or anything. As they literally ‘chilled’ pressed to the back of the fridge for about 110 days, I figured the mold would eventually blast through the plastic wrap like the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. But, it never came. I pulled it out and except for some slight discoloring of the surface, again, not a hint of mold. Astounding. Granted, these beans certainly do not look like new and I definitely wouldn’t eat them. But still…
The only answer is that the fridge is magic. A bachelor’s dream. Throw stuff into it, and forget about it. Instead of forcing one to remain ever vigilant against the insidious spread of noxious fungus, you can continue to go in for beers and gleefully let things sit for months on end. Perhaps I’ll only have to clean it out come spring. This is really making me want to try some experiments. Although, now that I’m in the dating pool again, that might not be the best idea. Something like that might be tough to explain away.
So, next time you’re pulling that 6 day old mold encrusted leftover from your fridge, think about me. Footloose and fancy free. Storing perishable food with no concern of spoilage. Of course, the real danger here is that I will forget just how long something has been in there and mistakenly eat it. When that happens, I’ll probably freak out as the walls burst into showers of pink elephants chewing on my toes, that for some reason have the faces of the Brady Bunch on them.
See ya in the emergency room.