Dance Like Henry Cooper

The inner secret of people's fridges is that they are either empty, except for rotting fast food leftovers and a few beer, or, they are so full something just about always causes you to dance like Henry Cooper every time you open the door. Our fridges suggest the extremist nature of humanity we are fond of denying.

Same goes for the cleanliness of fridges. They are clean as a still wrapped bandage or dirty as a sawmill lunchroom ice box.

Sonja never did like the side by side fridge that came with our house. "I hate that fucking fridge. There's no fucking room in it unless you are down to your last fucking beer." The fridge never bothered me. You can always squeeze a couple beer into the jammedest fridge.

So when our fridge started making a ticking noise, like the one our economy is making right now, we were soon on our way to the department store to buy the fridge of Sonja's dreams.

On its way is this year's model beer cooler. The freezer is on the bottom where a freezer ought to be. There is a shelf Sonja promises me will be just for my beer.

I like new stuff. As you get older you realize you will not get to buy that many more new durable goods. If this fridge is any good it just may be the last one I ever buy. But it probably will not be any good and I will have to buy another. The phrase durable goods is an oxymoron in this century.

The first fridge I bought held nothing but beer. It was over twenty years old when I bought it from a used appliance store. Eventually it found a home in Curly's basement before it was carted away, some 25 years later, by the local electric company for 60% of what I paid for it in the first place, still in good working order.