So Who Cleans the Freezer in Your Home?

When I opened the freezer door, a box of chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches hit me in the belly. They aren’t really ice cream, just tofu disguised as ice cream with less fat and no lactose. The tofu sandwiches, ejected from their tight spot between the frozen chicken breasts and the gray, freezer-burned hamburger meat, bounced off my stomach and settled on my feet. I was not looking for a reminder of the places that protrude from my body. I wanted to find Mark’s shoes.

“I want a Tofuti!” Kate screamed.

“It’s morning,” I said and shoved the tofu sandwiches back into a crevice and quickly shut the door. I couldn’t tuck the tofu sandwiches somewhere else because there wasn’t room. I could have made room, but I am incapable of removing only one object and discarding it. Making room for the chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches would have turned into cleaning the freezer, and cleaning the freezer would require facing my life. As it was, Kate was late for preschool.

Mark could go without shoes, but then I would spend the rest of the day answering for their absence. Seeing a sock-footed toddler, the grocery store clerk would ask, “Little boy, where are your shoes?” I would hear the same question at the post office and the bank. Mark would note his shoeless feet and say, “Shoes? Shoes?” with his palms turned upward and his expression that of a bewildered angel.

If I wanted to find Mark’s shoes, I would have to call my mother. My mother knows where everything is, even in my house. So why not call her first? I don’t like to admit she’s right.

“Look in the garbage can,” she said.

“I did,” I said. I had her.

“The outside garbage can.”

I stood on our wagon, took off the lid and examined the inside contents of our garbage can. There are moments in life when you stop and ask yourself what you are doing. I had avoided one of these moments earlier when I refused to clean out the freezer. As I lifted a stack of junk mail coated in melted Popsicle, I reconsidered opening the envelope that promised I could win a million dollars.

Kate watched me remove an empty orange juice bottle and cautioned, “Mama, the garbage is dirty.”

“Yuck, yuck, yuck,” Mark said as he walked in circles, barefoot, on the driveway.

I lifted an empty bag of BBQ potato chips with my fingernails. They say you can tell a lot about people by going through their garbage. I was hoping to see apple cores and carrot peels. Instead there were too many pizza boxes and not enough dental floss. People who floss regularly probably don’t leave gray hamburger meat in their freezer for years.

Under coffee grounds, I found Mark’s shoes. The shoes in the garbage explain why I saw a diaper on the low shelf in our kitchen. We pile shoes in our kitchen on a low shelf that was intended for decorative Italian pottery. I had had a diaper in one hand, shoes in the other.

By the time Mark and I dropped Kate off at preschool, it was almost lunchtime. We had 45 minutes until we were due back to pick her up. Mark’s shoes filled the car with the sweet aroma of coffee. I decided to skip the bank, the post office and the grocery store and return home, make a cup of coffee and call some of my girlfriends.

I did not want to face my life, so I decided to make them face their lives.

“Who cleans the freezer in your house?” I asked Leslie.

“Who do you think?” she said.

I called Marika. “Who cleans the freezer in you house?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

At least I wasn’t alone.

Back in the car, I resolved the afternoon would be different, a new beginning.

When I picked up Kate from preschool, her teacher met us at the door.

“We did a special project today,” the teacher said. “It’s a science experiment. “

Kate carried with her a resealable bag with orange liquid in it.

“It goes in the freezer, Mom.”

*

When Dan came home that night, he asked what I had done that day.

“I decided to hide Mark’s shoes myself and see how long it took me to find them,” I said and started to walk him through my search. When he glanced at the newspaper, my feelings got hurt and I insisted he wasn’t listening and started over.

“I looked under each bed, in each cupboard, in the diaper pail, in the freezer.” What else was I supposed to talk about?

“And every time I opened the freezer the chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches fell on me,” I said. “They burst from the freezer and hit me.”

“Why didn’t you put them somewhere else?” Dan asked. An innocent question by anyone except my husband.

“Why am I the one responsible for cleaning the freezer?” I said from underneath the high chair. I was scooping up smashed kiwi from the floor.

When we fight I hold very still. Dan paces. He opens cupboards looking for food, anything to distract us.

Dan assured me that he didn’t have a problem cleaning the freezer.

I snapped back that as long as my standards are a bit higher than his, he is always spared.

Dan opened the silverware drawer and shut it. He opened the children’s snack cupboard and shut it. He took out a glass and opened the freezer for ice.

The chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches hit him in the chest.

“What are you upset about?” he said as he tried to slide the tofu sandwiches back into the freezer. “You didn’t clean the freezer today.”

“Even if you cleaned it, it would be because I’ve said it needs cleaning,” I said. “I’m the one who thinks about the freezer.”

The tofu sandwiches fell back onto the floor. Dan removed the frozen chicken breasts and placed the tofu sandwiches in the vacant space. He now had frozen chicken breasts in his hand.

When he tried to jam the chicken breasts under the hamburger meat, the chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches shot onto the floor.

Dan used his foot to smash the box to make it flatter.

I crawled out from under the high chair to get a full view of him twisting and stomping.

With as much calmness and authority in my voice as I could muster, I said, “They are just tofu sandwiches.”

Dan pointed at the freezer, “And this is just a freezer,” he said and tossed the chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches in the garbage.

The next day I cleaned the freezer. I put every item on the kitchen counter and then went to the pantry to get garbage bags.

Our pantry is a walk-in pantry--sometimes. On the walk-in portion we stack our newspapers. When the pile exceeds my reach, we recycle them.

When I opened the pantry door and reached around the stack of newspapers for a plastic garbage bag, the pile of newspapers slid on top of me.

When Dan came home that night, he asked how my day had been.

“I spent all day being attacked by Republicans and terrorists,” I said, certain this would sound more serious than chocolate tofu ice cream sandwiches.

When Dan scrunched up his nose and tried to read the reverse newsprint on my forehead, I told him he wasn’t listening and started again.