Face Your Fridge

Yesterday morning, as usual, I was running late. So, instead of enjoying a morning start of fresh fruit, toast, and the most recent Ikea catalog like I had envisioned, I wound up standing at the fridge, shotgunning twelve ounces of OJ. I flipped the cap back on the carton (Yes, I drank from the carton. Guests beware.) and slammed the fridge door shut. And there it was. Staring me in the face.

I don't know if it was the particular angle or the fact that I had finally replaced the burnt out light bulb in my kitchen, but suddenly it all came into focus. Right in front of me.

My home has been infiltrated.

As I have described earlier, I am a current and stalwart resident of Noncreatorville. In fact, I could run for mayor of Noncreatorville, if I wasn't so anti-social and didn't go to bed at 9:30 most nights. Hmm ... I'm starting to see a clearer picture of why I'm a Noncreator...

Okay, the fact that I rarely rock anything but yoga pants if I can help it is beside the point. The important thing is this: I am not participating in the creation of any life except the mold I absent-mommed into existence in the sour cream tub on the top shelf of the fridge for the last two months. At least not anytime in the near future. I have to keep a plant alive for more than 18 days before I take on another human being's aliveness for 18 years. No judgment from over here, though. I totally support the choice of others to produce small, wrinkled, jiggly-headed creatures upon which they can heft all of their unfulfilled dreams and unmet expectations. Not to mention saddling them with names like Jennyfr and Bentley and Ecru. What's the fun in having a name that everyone can say and spell and from which can intuit a probable gender? A name really should be something one has to overcome.

I get it. Babies can expand your capacity to love, your ability to look past your own self-interests and give compassionately to others. That's why all of those Teen Mom episodes have such happy endings. And I'm not saying I won't ever cross that dark line into Procreation Woods. (Don't worry, it isn't an actual forest. That's just what's written on the sign at the entrance of the subdivision. What's even better, all of the streets have cute arboreally-themed names! Just turn into Pacifier Pines, then take a left onto Onesie Orchard Lane, and it's the last house on the right. If you hit Disposable Income Drive, you've gone to far.) Plus, really, if Snooki can do it, how hard can it be?

However, right now, I currently do not have any spawn of my own. So WHERE did all of these babies plastered onto my fridge come from? Did everyone I know suddenly start getting to know each other biblically approximately eleven months ago? Wait ... was THAT what everyone was doing that one weekend where I couldn't get a hold of anyone and wound up spending eleven hours organizing my linen closet? (In all seriousness, though, my linen closet kicks ass.)

Isn't it the cutest thing ever?!

I sense some grad-school-esque categorization in all of this. Like, what is on your fridge reflects your life stages in cool, contained compartments:

Finger/nose prints
= Fridge of a 3-to-6-year-old

Homework with gold stars stickers sparkling from the top
= Fridge of a 7-to-9-year-old

Orchestra concert ticket stubs
= Fridge of a high school student

Rock concert ticket stubs
= Fridge of a college student

Concert ticket print-outs from Ticketmaster because running down to the Box Office to pick up an actual ticket seems like a huge hassle, especially since parking is a nightmare with all of those college kids running around
= Fridge of no-longer-a-college student

Passive-aggressive note explaining that if SOMEONE hasn't actually forked over money to purchase  the coffee creamer, then that SOMEONE shouldn't use it and make others pay for their laziness
= Fridge of anyone with a roommate, really, regardless of age

Baby pictures of your own precious bundle of joy
= Fridge of a Procreator

Baby picture of other people's children, which makes you "awwww!" for about 5 seconds, then forces you to stand in your kitchen, motionless, totally unsure of what to do with this newest postcard picture now that you've cooed appropriately even though the child's genetic sources weren't there to hear it, so you contemplate throwing it away, but that seems as callous as tossing a Christmas card with Jesus smiling back at you from a glitter-brushed manger, so you scan your surroundings for an inconsequential place of display and eventually jam it on your fridge behind the free magnet from your local bank that displays a mini calendar calendar of 2007
= Fridge of a Noncreator who has friends with procreative tendencies

I'm sure I am missing some stages here and there. However I do know the Final Fridge Stage: a red plastic square emblazoned with the block-lettered banner screaming FILE OF LIFE and random bits of prescription printouts, contact information, and account passwords peeking out from the pocket below. Oh, and the church's card-game schedule for the next month perched behind it.

(By the way, if you think I'm kidding about this, or think you would never decorate your refrigerator with such a Debbie Downer of a decoration, check out this site. Oh, look at that, you ordered one!)

All of the refrigerator rambling aside ... I have big news to announce.

I'm an AUNT!!!

My sister popped out a kid about a month ago and she is adorable. Which, given the fact that I am not a huge baby person, means she actually is really cute. Trust me, if she looked like some babies do (a miniaturized Mickey Rooney) I would have totally thought it. I wouldn't have posted it in a public form such as this. But I would have thought it.

And thank goodness for that kid. Now, if friends mention the multitudes of baby mugshots plastered on my fridge, I no longer have to rattle off a long winded explanation of each one and how I wound up on the mailing list. Instead, I can just toss out, all casual, "Oh, that's my niece and her entourage. Want some sour cream for those nachos? Oh wait..."

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P.S. I almost forgot: my new little niece has her own blog! I gave her a good week to get adjusted to life outside the womb, but then I started pushing her to get on board writing some posts. I mean, really, a WEEK between entries? That is no way for a writer to behave. :)

Her blog is http://www.lettersfromlexigrace.blogspot.com/. Enjoy!