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Forget Mars, Just Open the Refrigerator (Dave Barry)
Miami Herald ^ | Mar. 14, 2004 | Dave Barry

Posted on 03/14/2004 8:42:57 PM PST by nuconvert

Forget Mars, Just Open the Refrigerator

Mar. 14, 2004

I'm a pretty good housekeeper. Ask anybody.

No, wait: Don't ask my wife. She and I disagree on certain housekeeping issues, such as whether it's OK for a house to contain dirt. Also smells. If NASA scientists really want to know about life on Mars, instead of sending up robots that keep finding rocks, they need to send my wife, and have her take a whiff of the Martian atmosphere. If there's a single one-celled organism anywhere on the planet, she'll smell it. And if the other astronauts don't stop her, she'll kill it with Lysol.

Which is why her approach to leftovers baffles me. I am opposed to leftovers. I believe the only food that should be kept around is takeout Chinese, which contains a powerful preservative chemical called ''kung pao'' that enables it to remain edible for several football seasons.

All other leftover foods should be thrown away immediately, for the same reason you should not go to your 40th high-school reunion. You go expecting to see people whom you vaguely remember as being attractive, and even though you know they've aged some -- Heck, even YOU have aged some -- you figure, hey, it's not as if you're OLD yet! You're middle-aged! Like Harrison Ford!

So you go to the reunion, and suddenly you find yourself in a room full of unrecognizable fossils, lurching around the dance floor to the sounds of Herman's Hermits, and you realize to your horror that YOU ARE ONE OF THEM.

You get the same kind of unpleasant shock with leftovers. Time and again, in my house, when we're cleaning up after dinner, there will be, say, a small clump of uneaten string beans, and I'll have it poised over the garbage, and my wife will lunge for it like a person rescuing a baby from a wood chipper, saying: ''Those will be good for leftovers!'' She'll carefully seal the string beans in a plastic container and put them in the refrigerator, as if she truly believes that sometime in the near future an actual human in our household will say: ``Dang! I could really chow down on some old string beans!''

Now fast-forward about a month, when my wife, passing the refrigerator, detects an odor molecule. So she takes out the plastic container and discovers that EWWW the string beans have been replaced by alien space worms with inch-long blue fur. Which of course she hurls into the garbage, which as you may recall is exactly where I tried to throw them a month earlier. This is what happens to, I would estimate, 100 percent of our non-Chinese-takeout ``leftovers.''

Speaking of refrigerator odors, here is a:

PRACTICAL HOMEMAKER TIP -- Always keep an open box of baking soda in your refrigerator. That way, when people come to your house to visit, you can say: ''Would you care for some cold baking soda?'' Then they will leave.

But I digress. My point -- and I know this because I'm using powerful point-detection software -- is that people have differing views about what constitutes good housekeeping. This is why I'm so interested in an article that appeared recently in the New York Times, concerning household cleanliness.

The article, brought to my attention by alert reader Bill Ulrey, states that your kitchen -- yes, YOUR kitchen -- is basically a festering swarm of potentially deadly bacteria. The most interesting part of the article concerns a discovery by a University of Arizona microbiology professor named Dr. Chuck Gerba, who is an expert on household germs. I am familiar with Dr. Gerba, because some years ago I interviewed him on bathroom cleanliness, and he told me that the only sure way to kill all the bacteria on a toilet is -- I am not making this up -- to put laboratory alcohol on the bowl and set it on fire.

LEGAL ADVISORY -- Dr. Gerba is a trained bathroom scientist. As a layperson, you must NEVER EVER set your toilet on fire, EVER. Also be advised that it looks much cooler with the lights out.

So anyway, according to the New York Times, Dr. Gerba has found that 'people who had the cleanest-looking kitchens were often the dirtiest. Because `clean' people wipe up so much, they often end up spreading bacteria all over the place. The cleanest kitchens, he said, were in the homes of bachelors, who never wiped up and just put their dirty dishes in the sink.''

That's right: You so-called ''good housekeepers'' with your so-called ''cleaning'' are in fact smearing bacteria around, while we so-called ''slobs'' are, by courageous inaction, making the world's kitchens safer for everybody.

There's no need to thank us. All we ask is a little respect. Also, while you're sniffing those leftovers, please grab us a beer.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: barry; davebarry; humor; mars
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1 posted on 03/14/2004 8:42:57 PM PST by nuconvert
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To: nuconvert
``Dang! I could really chow down on some old string beans!''

C'mon admit it, who hasn't said this to themselves from time to time?

2 posted on 03/14/2004 8:59:25 PM PST by doingtherightthing
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To: nuconvert
Oh yeah, thanks for the post nuconvert. Too funny!
3 posted on 03/14/2004 9:00:41 PM PST by doingtherightthing
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To: nuconvert
Excellent. I read the original article, but Barry's humor always brings out salient points. :)
4 posted on 03/14/2004 9:03:54 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife (The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. --- Kahlil Gibran)
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To: doingtherightthing
"Is it meat or is it cake?" George Carlin on leftovers waaaaay in the back of the fridge.
5 posted on 03/14/2004 9:04:18 PM PST by bonfire
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To: Pan_Yans Wife
Since I don't buy the newspaper anymore, I rely on FR for my humor. I am one sick puppy.

Anyway, with the internet around I have no need to buy oil-stained slices of tree.

6 posted on 03/14/2004 9:09:14 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.ArmorforCongress.com......................Send a Freeper to Congress!)
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To: nuconvert
But I digress. My point -- and I know this because I'm using powerful point-detection software -- is that people have...

We could all use this wonderful invention, point-detection software. Where do I buy it? Is anyone going to tell Kerry about this?
7 posted on 03/14/2004 9:10:42 PM PST by edayna
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To: GeronL
Being frugal and discriminating in your reading selections are admirable traits.

(I read the original article on FR, too!)
8 posted on 03/14/2004 9:11:33 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife (The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. --- Kahlil Gibran)
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To: nuconvert
DB stepped over the line with his wood chipper comment. Dave, this actually happened to people. I love reading your columns and will continue to do so. However, I'm hoping that in retrospect you wish you left that analogy out. It IS a bad world out there and there ARE monsters in the closet and under the bed.
9 posted on 03/14/2004 9:15:48 PM PST by NonValueAdded (He says "Bring it on!!" Then when you do, he says, "How dare you!! ")
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To: nuconvert
Can my two X wives go there also?
10 posted on 03/14/2004 9:20:54 PM PST by noutopia (Don't hate me cause I'm right !)
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To: noutopia
Sorry wrong post. Wow
11 posted on 03/14/2004 9:22:59 PM PST by noutopia (Don't hate me cause I'm right !)
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To: edayna
I wonder what the ratio of points to posts would be on the average thread? What does the software do when there is no point?
12 posted on 03/14/2004 9:25:41 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: Pan_Yans Wife
I guess calling newspapers oil-stained slices of trees isn't as funny as I thought.
13 posted on 03/14/2004 9:35:42 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.ArmorforCongress.com......................Send a Freeper to Congress!)
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To: GeronL
I GOT it. :)
14 posted on 03/14/2004 9:36:59 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife (The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. --- Kahlil Gibran)
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To: edayna
Hey, I remember reading an article about a guy in.. Kansas City? St. Louis? Who has tons of patents and is making money off them... he has developed a computer program that invents things!
15 posted on 03/14/2004 9:37:00 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.ArmorforCongress.com......................Send a Freeper to Congress!)
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To: Pan_Yans Wife
well, thanks.
16 posted on 03/14/2004 9:37:46 PM PST by GeronL (http://www.ArmorforCongress.com......................Send a Freeper to Congress!)
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To: nuconvert
PRACTICAL HOMEMAKER TIP -- Always keep an open box of baking soda in your refrigerator. That way, when people come to your house to visit, you can say: "Would you care for some cold baking soda?"

I've long felt this was one of the most brilliant marketing strategies of all time. People don't bake "from scratch" much anymore, so the folks at Arm and Hammer had to find a way to get people to buy more of their product.

The solution: convince people that keeping keeping an open box of the stuff in the fridge "absorbs odors." Of course, the Arm and Hammer people recommended that you open a new box once a month, and dump the old one down the drain "to keep it smelling fresh" too.

And people bought into it. People actually purchased the stuff for the express purpose of throwing it away. Sheer genius by the marketing department!

17 posted on 03/14/2004 11:04:35 PM PST by southernnorthcarolina ("Shut up," he explained.)
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To: GeronL
"Oil stained slices of tree" means newspapers? I thought you were talking about something way back in your refrigerator. I have something back there that might be oil stained slices of tree but I'm a little nervous about asking it for news. As a matter of fact, I think my best move might be to just unplug the refrigerator and push it out into the street on garbage pickup day.
18 posted on 03/15/2004 12:22:45 AM PST by NaughtiusMaximus (I could never vote for a guy with a chin like that.)
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To: nuconvert; zeugma; xm177e2; XBob; whizzer; wirestripper; whattajoke; vp_cal; VOR78; ...
Microscopic 3-D image from "berrybowl" . . . approx 1.2" sq . . .

If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me

19 posted on 03/15/2004 6:14:40 AM PST by Phil V.
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To: Phil V.
Thanks for the ping!
20 posted on 03/15/2004 6:16:53 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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