Cleaning Out The Fridge For Dummies

I couldn't sleep Friday night/Saturday morning. Sometimes I get bouts of insomnia, where I JUST. CAN'T. SLEEP. Very frustrating. Luckily, this past week was one of the laziest of my life, so there was plenty of housework to keep me occupied in the wee hours of the morning. I decided to get a jump start on everything, and at about 7, after doing two loads of laundry, cleaning the guest bathroom, and eating some candy, I decided the fridge needed to be cleaned out. Below are the steps for cleaning out a fridge. If you are a dummy. Like me.

1) This first step is very important. Do not, under any circumstances, keep your fridge clean. Do not wipe off sticky bottles before putting them in the fridge. Do not use your leftovers, let them sit sadly in the back of the fridge for a few months. When they are growing new food, you know it has almost been long enough. This is important because if your fridge does not get dirty, you cannot clean it, and you might as well stop reading now.

2) Sit on the floor in front of your open fridge, and take everything out. Try not to throw up when you open containers of three month old alfredo sauce or corn that seems to be growing a new life form. Cleaning your fridge during allergy season is especially helpful due to the stuffy nose. I even recommend waiting to clean out the fridge until you have a very bad head cold, if it helps.

3) Realize that sitting with the fridge door open for that long is a waste of electricity. Turn the fridge off.

4) Separate all the food into good and bad. Throw the bad away. Keep the good in a pile. If you fridge looks like mine, you will now have half a gallon of milk and some butter left in the good pile, and half of bag of very stinky trash…

5) Fill a bowl with warm soapy water. Wash off all the shelves. Bonus points if you take out the drawers and clean them too! Extra bonus points if you can identify the sticky goo under the vegetable drawer.

6) Put all the good food back. Give yourself a huge pat on the back.

7) Make a grocery list, now that you realize your fridge is completely empty (man cannot live on butter alone).

8) Go throughout your day feeling accomplished and thinking of how bright and shiny the inside of the fridge is.

9) The next morning, have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Realize the milk is warm, even though you just got it out of the fridge… Remember that you forgot to turn the fridge BACK ON.

10) Be thankful there wasn’t actually food in there.

11) Vow to never clean the fridge again.