Tonight a situation arose that forced me to confront parts of my psyche that I hoped to keep buried forever, and which prodded me to finally answer the hand-wringingly difficult question I ask my
Guest Book visitors:

Which do you hate the most?:

• Emptying Dishwasher
• Folding Laundry
• Making the Bed
• Wiping Up Spills in Refrigerator

This afternoon, in a fit of domesticity, I actually made a pot of coffee. I transferred part of the coffee into a glass bottle with a lid and the rest into an enormous lidless glass, added One (my fun way of saying “half and half”), Splenda, and ice cubes, and placed the gorgeous concoction in the refrigerator to enjoy later, ignoring my own warnings to myself that it wasn’t really a good idea. And it wasn’t.

(So. Can you guess my answer to the question?)

As I ran to get towels to sop up the perfectly light and sweet coffee that would never have the unspeakable pleasure of kissing, and then passing, my lips, I thought, Well, you know what, there are people out there who don’t even have refrigerators. There are people in other countries — no, people in this country, people who sleep on this street — who don’t have homes, warm comfortable homes, let alone big white cold refrigerators, and who would gladly trade places with me right now. We’re so spoiled in this country. I’m so spoiled in this apartment. You know what? I should be happy I have a refrigerator to clean!

And then, when I got back to the kitchen and saw that not only was the refrigerator’s bottom ledge affected but also the “crisper” and wire shelves, and realized that that meant that my obsessive-compulsive, perfectionist psychoses wouldn’t allow me to even think about going to bed until the entire refrigerator, even those parts that weren’t affected by the spill, was scrubbed, I wished I was lounging on a big steamy grate behind a nice quiet Dumpster across the street.