My father dropped by my apartment this past Sunday night. Now, I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything since it was really good to see my dad, but I didn’t have a whole lot of warning to his visit. My parents called Thursday night to let me know that he was stopping by on his way up from Georgia to Maryland. And, as I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I was in a very favorable midway point where he could stop and rest. That and presumably my dad wanted to visit his youngest son whom he hadn’t seen since Christmas.
My dad happens to be a great guy, who is lots of fun to hang out with, so I’m quite lucky in that regard. Well, mostly he’s awesome when he’s not making me do yard work or enlisting my help in cleaning his garage (his power tools produce an ungodly amount of saw dust, trust me). Since he was visiting my at my apartment, which has neither yard nor garage to speak of, I felt relatively safe. But I only had three days to prepare things for a visit, and considering the fact that I’m a bachelor, my apartment isn’t exactly the model of clean living. In fact, I’m pretty sure Martha Stewart would have a coronary episode if she were to ever set eyes on my place. Even her mastery of floral arrangements could do little to improve my ramshackled living style.
Luckily I had plenty of free time on Sunday afternoon so I forced myself to do what under normal circumstances would be unconscionable: I cleaned my apartment. Now I know what you’re thinking, but no, I did not just shove all the cluttered bills and magazines and everything else into my closet. That would have just compounded matters when the next morning I would have the need to dress myself from clothes in said closet. Well, ok, so I shoved some of the clutter into my closet. But most of it I either threw away or found it a proper place. Granted, the “proper place” for most of my muddled crap was the garbage can. Or as it is more formally known as, in the case of my apartment, the garbage corner.
Sure, there had once been a mere garbage can in my kitchen, sitting in the space between the end of my cabinets and the edge of a sofa from the kitchenette (I don’t own a real table or anything even remotely resembling kitchenette or dining room furniture, so I have a sofa instead, and you know what, it works for me). But over time, and through my own sanitary ineptitude, the pile of trash grew beyond the inadequate container that attempted to hold it all. Before long the entire space between the cabinets and the sofa became filled with McDonalds take out bags and DiGiorno’s Pizza boxes. Did I mention I’m a bachelor?
Needless to say, it took several trash bags to rid myself of the curse of the garbage corner. It’s gone for now, but who can say when it will return? And trust me, there is no “if it will return”, it is most definitely a question of “when will it return.” Beyond all of that, I washed some laundry, and did my best to tidy up the place. For most people, that would include cleaning the bathroom. Luckily for me, I keep my bathroom pretty well clean every month. Let all of you single guys out there take note. If you leave your kitchen a mess when a lady caller comes to visit, that’s ok. Girls normally expect a guy to be messy; it’s just in our nature. But when the time comes for her to use your facilities, either to answer the call of nature, or more hopefully, to clean herself up for something a little more intimate, she’s going to be desirous of a cleansed and cleanly bathroom. My theory: keep the restroom cleaned and keep the ladies coming back. Now that’s just a theory, so do with it what you will.
Now my dad’s visit was a pleasant one, if not particularly short. But I’m sure he’ll be stopping by on his way back to Georgia after he finishes with all the preparations needed for my parents to move to Maryland this summer. Though it’ll promise to be another brief stay, I’m looking forward to it. Heck, my apartment is already cleaned, so I don’t have to worry about that this time around.
Though, the one thing that has been worrying me is my refrigerator. There’s nothing wrong with the fridge’s mechanics mind you, it’s just what’s inside the cooling machine that frightens me. I never got around to cleaning the thing out before my dad came to visit, and needless to say, it has been a long, long time since I’ve bothered to rearrange the contents of my fridge. There are things in there that I believe would best lie undisturbed. On the up side, I did manage to toss the three half gallons of milk that had been taking up space inside for varying lengths of time. On a sadder note, I’m quite disappointed that the older cartons of milk never managed to grow legs and save me the trouble by walking out of my apartment. I figured if I waited long enough, it could happen.
So now I have a question for you: What is the approximate shelf life for condiments when stored at chilled temperatures? I only ask because, like most single men, my fridge is not full of real foods like meats, cheeses, breads, fruits, or vegetables (see: The Food Pyramid) but instead, is stocked plentifully with ketchup (both bottled and fast food packet variety), various flavored and yellow mustards, pickled relish, hot sauce, honey, lime juice, mayonnaise, Miracle Whip (why I have both of those I may never know), an assortment of jams, jellies, and fruit preservatives, and the most manly of condiments, Worcestershire sauce. Seriously, besides the fact that no man alive can spell that name correctly without the aid of a cooking dictionary or Google (which coincidentally spells far better than Microsoft Word), there is no practical use for the condiment.
Oh sure, you might use a few drops of the brown sauce for crafting home made hamburgers to set on the grill, or in a recipe for Bloody Mary mix (though I still haven’t found the nerve to force myself to drink tomato juice and vodka …), and I personally use Worcestershire sauce when cooking sloppy Joes, you know, for the nights that I don’t microwave a Hungry Man pre-made TV dinner. Even in its severely limited usage, every man I’ve ever known has had a full bottle of the sauce in his fridge.
Yet my original question remains. How long will these condiments last? Most have been in my fridge since I moved here, which was well over a year ago. Hell, the tub of margarine in the back of the fridge is most likely of the same acquisition date. And I’m pretty sure that can of peanut butter has been in my pantry for even longer. I’m not going to die if I eat anything from in from my fridge or pantry, will I? That’s just the sort of question that would probably keep me up at night, if I didn’t regularly drown my brain cells in fermented beverages. Thank God for alcohol.
It’s probably best that I don’t even go into detail about what’s in my freezer. I mean, I know for a fact that the bag of pre-boiled shrimp has been frozen in there for longer than nine months. Even when completely iced up, food goes bad. Those crab legs probably aren’t edible either. So yeah, I am in a painful need of a total cleansing of my food stocks. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m quite up to the job. This sounds like woman’s work to me. Now, I don’t say that because I’m a chauvinistic pig (and believe me, I truly am), rather I would much prefer it if some person, who is most decidedly not me, clean up my sullied and over-spoiled edibles.
If you think you’re that person, please contact me immediately. You can be assured that there will be rewards and ample compensation. By which I mean you can eat anything out of my fridge, freezer, or pantry that you want. Seriously help yourself, I won’t be touching any of it any time soon.
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