There are many uses of the refrigerator besides the storing therewith of food.
Depending on one's moment in life it can actually be chock full of food. This is a very important look when one has new stepdaughters under the age of seven visiting for the first time, nervous without the comforts of their Mom's refrigerator, and so rush to check out yours.
They need the kind of fullness that when the door is yanked open, apples fall out and roll over to the cat dish, thwaking it so thoroughly the water splashes all over high heaven, and in the process of wiping up, one recovers an emerald earring, a key for the front door of the old house, and a cat hairball so old it has become a Picasso sculpture.
I don't live like that anymore.
Recently I read that, in addition to film and nailpolish, one should store one's perfume in the refrigerator. All the professionals do, the article said.
I warmed to the notion immediately. It was a hot day. I hastened to retrieve my perfume from the humidity of my bathroom drawer marked 'perfumes'. Inside lay a single bottle of perfume--
Brushing aside vague alarm that I was somehow, without my knowledge, now negotiating life with a single (almost empty) bottle of perfume, I carried it down to my refrigerator. I pulled open the door--
And was met by an embarrassingly motley assortment of staples. Given the dearth of items on the shelves, I could see it was also in need of cleaning...especially the vegetable drawer. I was keeping tortillas in the meat drawer, jelly mixed in with the ketchup in the door, and there wasn't an Orange Crush to be had.
I placed the perfume in there anyway. I spent a moment or two trying to redecorate the interior of the refrigerator in such a way my little bottle of Boucheron would feel comfortable. I spoke to it even, assuring it the frosty air would be balm for its soul.
It gazed back at me mutely as perfume bottles are wont to do....
So, just as I had made sure my refrigerator was stuffed that day my stepdaughters peered fearfully into it, I carried my perfume bottle back to its familiar and comfy home in the heat and damp of the bathroom drawer marked, oh so erroneously, 'perfumes'.
I'll leave the storing of perfume in the antiseptic confines of the refrigerator to...everyone else.
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