orange you glad

Not since Joseph Mengele have such hideous experiments in science been conducted as those which routinely occur in the office refrigerator. Mold infestations are common, even encouraged by the vast amounts of perishable food left lying about, untouched for months at a time. Today I had a troubling encounter with carrot water. This is not to be confused with carrot juice, which is a real-life beverage. Rather, carrot water is the accumulation of condensation that tapes place during your regular refrigerating cycle. Normally, said process is short-circuited when the food is eaten or thrown out. Carrots are a highly-perishable food. They will not keep long. So, when I picked-up the bag containing carrots and saw the water-based mold which was infesting the carrot water, I had to wonder. "How could one so quickly forget about their bag of carrots?"

After some thought, I came up with the following thesis, which you are free to try and prove on your own: The probability of a person forgetting an item left in the refrigerator is directly proportional to the speed with which it rots.

Thesis notwithstanding, I had yet to solve my carrot problem. You see, the laws of the office refrigerator are vague. Who controls what? When is it safe to throw something out? Do initials in permanent marker on the packaging bear any significant weight? Are they to be respected? Generally my guidelines in these matters are based on two overarching factors: mold and stank. If a mold city is growing around a food item, threatening to infest the other, innocent, food items, I'm throwing it out. If I'm opening the refrigerator door and a waft of fresh stank penetrates my nostrils (and my sense of smell ain't all that), I will then attempt to identify the source of said stank and remove it post haste. Usually you can not find the source of the stank because at some point the mold becomes mobiles and develops a keen fungal intelligence of its own which beggars locating. But if I can find it, it's gone.

Carrots in hand and the mold now beginning to mock me, "You don't have the balls to throw me out. What if I'm your boss's carrots? You won't take that chance!" I delicately throw out the carrots, so as not to upset the sentient being inside. As an added bonus, it was by then time to go home.

All this thinking about the refrigerator reminded me I had cookie dough inside it. I had bought the dough so some co-worker's kid could learn how to read or something - the exact fundraising cause escaping me. I went inside the fridge, grabbed the plastic bag containing the box of cookie dough and noticed the bag had a watery film on it. Great. It smelled of vinegar. Double great. What could it be? What smells like vinegar? Well, vinegar for one. My feet for two. Basically any kind of spoiled juice can smell like vinegar. I threw the bag away and didn't notice any holes where the "vinegar" may have penetrated my cookie dough. You win this time refrigerator, but I'll be back.