Amuse bouche... Fridge Fetish

Declan had read an article about how best to organise the fridge. He’d torn it out and stuck it on the fridge. Lucy was delighted. She found it endearing when Declan got stuck into one of his systems, and she also liked anything that got another boring domestic duty off her to-do list.

Declan wasn’t one of these husbands who made hilarious jokes to other men about doing the housework badly so they were never asked to do it again. Declan believed that if you were going to do a job, you did it well. Declan liked to commit properly to things. Lucy liked this about him, but given the work and the cycling, he didn’t have the time to commit properly to much.

Before he found the holy grail of fridge-organisation, Declan’s only domestic commitment was the dishwasher.

He had once read Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode banging on in an interview about how to correctly stack a dishwasher. Declan had loved Depeche Mode back in the day, and he felt Dave’s passion for the dishwasher.

Given it meant that she didn’t have to go near the dishwasher any more, Lucy declined to point out how depressing it was to be taking housekeeping tips from your teen idol.

Lucy let Declan at it. She didn’t put so much as a cup in the dishwasher for fear that she did it incorrectly, which she always did, of course. The handles had to line up on the correct side; she never bothered to remember which.

It bothered Lucy when the cups and cutlery started to gather in the sink because Declan was watching a match or something, but you couldn’t have everything.

And, after all, Lucy had everything bloody else in the domestic domain. Except also, latterly, the fridge.

The article that Declan had stuck on the fridge explained and illustrated just where everything was to live in the fridge for optimal freshness. Lucy had been doing it all wrong. She took the scolding, in the hope that it got the fridge off her to-do list. She made it clear to Declan, though, that the fridge was his now. Which included the fortnightly clear-out and cleaning, too.

Declan accepted the terms and conditions; they were worth it for the buzz of imposing the system.

No milk in the door, apparently, which led to some spilling of lying-down cartons with improperly secured lids. No eggs or tomatoes in the fridge, which meant they were now lying around in full view, but if it meant that Lucy had one less job on her list, then that was small potatoes.

The small potatoes were no longer in the fridge either, obviously.