The toast jumps from the toaster and I knife a hasty layer of my yogurt-based spread over the bread before capping the container and returning it to the refrigerator. Meanwhile, three feet away, there sits a bowl of dry cereal waiting for its milk. I clasp the handle of the skim while returning the spread and eye the juice glass I happened to place just out of reach....poor judgement: it gets me every time. So far, my outstretched foot has been able to keep the door ajar. With grim purpose, I return the gallon of milk, retract my foot, and make a run for the glass. I return just in the nick of time to elbow my way back into the ever narrowing gap of the open refrigerator door for the orange juice. I let the door close now, and try to control the twitch in my eye.
It is a strange, hyperactive routine that I feel I must follow. It's sort of like I am Riverdancing while balancing Webster's complete dictionary on my head, spinning a basketball on my right index finger, and holding a very full mug of very hot coffee with my other hand. Yeah, it's a lot like that, only I'm not dancing, or balancing a book on my head—nor do I own a basketball, truth be known—but the coffee part might just be a direct correlation.
I feel that it started with my grandparents' aged upright freezer. See, their freezer was quite simply the best freezer ever. It was loaded with ice cream desserts, chocolate whatnots, and INDIVIDUAL BOXES OF MICROWAVE FRENCH FRIES. My cousins and I would break into the ancient contraption and pilfer a snack—but the trick was not to let the door close before everybody had chosen their treat. Immediately after closing, the door sealed itself like...like....like a bi-polar magnet. Yeah, a lot like that. Quite often, it took three of us grunting with all of our pre-ten-year-old might to wrestle it open again to grab just one more fudge bar while Grandma dozed on the recliner.
As I am sure is evident by now, l have retained a certain phobia about the closing of the refrigerator door, any magnetized door. The thought of missing my chance with those french fries continues to haunt my thoughts, obviously, and I perform circus tricks to keep the magnets at odds with one another. Today's models aren't so stingy as that old geezer in my grandparents' kitchen, I'll grant you, but this matters only marginally in the scheme of a full-fledged neurosis. Many people have theories of the rising obesity rates in this country, including but not restricted to individual boxes of microwave french fries...but I can tell you with absolute certainty that people "way back when" were thinner because they just couldn't get to their food.
