Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Defrosting

This morning, I defrosted our smaller fridge. Yup, you heard me right. In this day and age, defrosting a fridge...now, who'd do that? Well, I do. We've had this half-size fridge since 20 some years and we use it to store drinks, fruits, deserts, and such.
The thing works like a dream, but it needs defrosting every few months. Well, supposedly once a month, but with a sloth like me, this stretches to three to four months. During that time, its small freezer slot freezes solid with an iceberg that would make the North Pole jealous. So when I defrost it, I empty the insides from the night before and pad around it with towels and sponges. Luckily, we have tile on the floor and I don't run the risk of ruining any carpet.
The exciting part with the defrosting comes during the night when we periodically wake up to the sound of ghosts falling over each other and cracking on the shelves. In the morning, I empty what has turned into water and what still swims in big ice floes.
This morning while I was wiping the shelves, I thought, 'It would be nice to just freeze away everybody's troubles and then dump them away,' but then troubles are not as easy to get rid of as ice. Yeah, I am a little weird and old-fashioned. I get attached to things and people and talk to myself like that. Also, I still keep a fridge that needs defrosting even after my husband gave me a gift of a third fridge that doesn't need defrosting.
Yet, I can't possibly get rid of this one. This fridge and I have accumulated a lot of emotion between us, even if I now have one big fridge and two small ones.
Then, my husband tells me, in the middle of my defrosting, "Don't kill yourself, before we get on the plane." He always says that before each trip. So funny! Someone who's afraid of flying should hear him. Although I smile and nod, I know I'll take out the vacuum cleaner as soon as he exits to run his errands.
How is he to understand that, while I don't usually do much housework, I like to leave a halfway decent house for nobody while we are away!