THE KITCHEN CAPER CATASTROPHE...

     Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you describe it as a natural catastrophe, an event that has unfortunate consequences or a person that’s an abject failure… a disaster is something to be avoided.

     My story begins in the year 1959. I know this because I was about five-years-old at the time. My mother and father were out doing the weekly grocery shopping. They would only be gone about an hour…maybe an hour and a half at the most. My parents left strict instructions for my 12-year-old sister, Natalie and 10-year-old brother, Patrick to “watch” me while they were out. In retrospect, it probably would have been better had they taken me with them, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

50s Style Refrigerator 

     The refrigerator we had back in the 50s was typical for that time, but was nothing like the ones that are on the market today. This fridge was white and had a single door (no separate external access to the freezer). You opened the door by pulling the metal handle towards you. The inside of the refrigerator had all of the features you would expect… a freezer compartment at the top (not self-defrosting, by the way) with a drip pan below, a vegetable crisper at the bottom and metal shelves in-between. There was also shelving built into the door of the fridge to hold eggs, condiments, soda and milk (did I mention that all condiments, soda and milk came in glass jars and bottles back then?).

     I remember that if you opened the fridge door all the way, it would swing back and slam shut. That was not exactly a big hit with my mother given the number of times we would fling open that door looking for something to eat. “What are you looking for now? Nothing new has magically appeared since you opened it five minutes ago!”

     On the day of the ‘incident’, my brother, sister and I were bored (well, they were bored, I was thrilled that they wanted to play with me). My brother came up with the idea to play ‘carnival ride’ with the refrigerator. Natalie would be the ticket taker, Patrick would be the ride operator and I would be the victim (I mean, the one that went on the ride). The price of the ticket was a piece of candy or Monopoly™ money that was left out the last time the game was put away.

                 

                                     Popular Candy from the 1950s

Monopoly™ Play Money

     The ride was a simple enough concept and worked by opening the refrigerator door as far as it would go for optimum speed. The 'rider' would grab hold of the top of the door and ride along until it swung shut.

     At three and a half-foot tall and somewhere around 35-40 lbs., it made perfect sense that I…as the smallest of the trio would undertake the maiden voyage of what seemed like a thrilling new ride. What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out, I was too short to reach the top of the door by myself; so, with the help of the 'ride operator' and 'ticket taker' on either side of me…I was lifted up so that I could grab onto the top of the door and then dangle there... like a pendulum on a clock. A slight push was all that was required to activate this rather quick, thrill ride and send the refrigerator door (with me attached) sailing along.

     As the ‘carnival ride’ approached the point of debarkation (i.e., the door was about to slam shut), the refrigerator started to tip forward with me under it. Fortunately, Patrick and Natalie were there and pushed the fridge back into place and rescued me from what could have been a horrific situation. Unfortunately, for the items stored inside the refrigerator… especially those in the door…they weren’t so lucky. There were broken eggs, smeared mustard, ketchup, soda and milk mixed with shards of glass all over the inside of the fridge and on the floor.

     My parents were on their way home by this point. It was imperative that this mess be cleaned up before they arrived. Natalie as the eldest took charge of the cleanup. Patrick was assigned disposal of the evidence and I was given the most important assignment of them all… keep my mouth shut.

     We heard the car pull up about ten minutes later and we all scattered to the living room and pretended to watch tv. Mom and dad came in through the backdoor with bags of groceries. My brother and sister were relegated to help carry the rest of them inside, and while my mother did her routine inspection of the kitchen, I was busy… keeping my mouth shut. As the grocery bags were placed on the table and the unpacking began with some items set aside for the pantry and others designated for the refrigerator…mom casually asked the question, “So which one of you was swinging on the refrigerator door?”

     It’s a good thing that Natalie and Patrick never got into crime scene cleanup as a vocation. Bits of dried mustard, ketchup and eggs were still evident inside the fridge along with sticky fingerprints found on the metal handle of the door. All of that and the fact that items had been moved around and quite a lot had to be thrown out were enough for mom to figure out what had happened. Amazingly enough, she wasn’t as angry as I would have thought…just glad that no one got hurt.

     The ‘carnival ride’ was retired after that episode, though it would take my brother’s tongue getting frozen to the frost and icy build up inside the freezer before we finally got a brand-new self-defrosting refrigerator, but that’s a disaster story for another day. 😉