By Georgia Osten
First of all, I am not a packrat. Don’t leave anything laying around in my sight, it WILL get thrown away. In my husband’s case, it WILL get put away. Clothes, knick knacks, anything I haven’t used in over a year will find its way to Second Going or the trash. I don’t know what it is, I’m just not the Saving for a Rainy Day kind of person. I guess that goes for money as well, just not good at saving. That’s not entirely true, I have been putting a miserly sum into savings, but that’s for a much-needed vacation to a foreign country – dreaming …

So, the other day, well, I’ve actually done it in the last two or three weeks, I’ll go into our kitchen at the Fire Station and clean out the refrigerator. No telling how many people use that fridge!

I’m also guilty of cleaning the microwave, I don’t think I’m the only person who uses it, after all, I would not leave it if I let something explode in it. It takes forever for the hot water to arrive at the sink, so I’ll let it run and run until I can draw a sink full of hot water. I’ll load it with Dawn and immerse the microwave glass in it. And, of course, I have to wipe out the inside top to bottom. Most of the time I leave the stuff in the sink and someone must put it back together to use it. It’s all good.

Back to the fridge, about 3 weeks ago as I was waiting for my Lean Cuisine to cook in the microwave for 4-6 minutes, I looked around wondering what I could do rather than walking all the way back to my office. So, I attacked the fridge. Oh my gosh, there were container after container in there stuffed way back to the back. There were bags of soggy salads. If I had the nerve to open the containers, most of them contained fuzzy stuff. Sometimes, I would just throw the whole container away.

Recently, just after Thanksgiving, I was waiting for my lunch to cook, so I attacked again. Ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, pies (I can’t tell you how many), half eaten, or a bite out of each, I began pitching. I saved one container, it looked like beef stew. Happy I did, because later, I came into the kitchen and David was serving up a portion of beef stew. I didn’t tell him how close I had come to throwing out his beef stew his girlfriend had made. Oh geez!

Ruthann is my counterpart in this whole cleanliness factor. She takes it to the max though. I really don’t think she would go as far as to throw people’s stuff away, but she is the master straightener and organizer and toilet paper filler. When it’s Ruthann’s shift, EVERYTHING gets cleaned – floors to ceiling! I can’t hold a candle.

I went in Saturday to help out with the Crystaland Parade and met David in the kitchen, he had this look on his face, Uh Oh. “Georgia,” he said. “Thanks for throwing my brisket out.” Holy crap! I thought it might help to tell him how close I came to throwing out his beef stew. I’m really sorry. In fact, I have brisket on my shopping list next time I go to town.

Beware fellow co-workers, “Next Friday, Clean out the Refrigerator Day.”

[Dec-7-2020]