by Wayne Chan
Now that the election season has passed and everyone is hopefully just hoping for the best, it’s time to get to more immediate, pressing questions.
I think it would help to provide some background on the situation.
We are a family of five: myself, my lovely wife Maya, and our triplets, Ethan, Tyler and Savannah. We have a nice, comfortable home. For the past 26 years, these children needed to be fed and apparently, in our role as parents, we had the fiduciary responsibility to feed them.
Therefore, in our home, in various locations, we have two refrigerators and a standing freezer to hold all of the provisions needed to keep them alive and healthy. Naturally, all three appliances have been packed completely with food for 26 years. I mean, there isn’t a square inch of space available in any of these units at any given time. If something is taken out to be consumed, something else is immediately put back in to take its place.
That is, however, until last year. For the most part, all three kids have moved out. All three have bright futures, and because we kept our end of the bargain up and fed them as required, they are healthy and well fed.
So, as we are now in the “empty nester” stage of our lives, here is my pressing question.
Why are all the fridges still packed with food?
I’ve been on a diet for the last 6 months. I’ve lost weight. I just don’t eat that much anymore. Maya seems to eat things that are only suitable for birds. She eats light. And yet, our fridge and freezers continue to be packed to the gills with food I didn’t buy and don’t even know what they are or where they came from.
Here’s the quandary. Last week, I bought a package of frozen dumplings. As an Asian, I’ve always loved dumplings. I put them in the main freezer drawer in the kitchen so I can conveniently get access to them.
And yet, every time I go looking for the dumplings, they’re never in the main freezer drawer where I originally left them. Someone (*cough cough*, ahem Maya) deliberately relocates my dumplings and what is most troublesome, is where she puts them (and no, it’s not the trash can).
She puts them in the standing freezer. And no, not just on top of all the food that’s already in the freezer. Our standing freezer is organized with two heavy bins full of food sitting on top of a third level of frozen goods. She leaves my dumplings in the third level, which means she had to jack up about 150 pounds of food bins to even get to the bottom third level.
So, here is my follow-up question: why are my treasured dumplings being relegated to what is ostensibly the freezer dungeon?
Then, Maya has the temerity to gripe about any food I have in the freezer.
“Why don’t you eat any of the food you bought? I have to throw them out because they’re way past the expiration!” I must admit, some of the frozen stuff I bought might have been acquired during the Clinton administration.
But my answer to her question is just as valid. I asked, “Why don’t I eat the food I bought? Because I just want to heat up a few dumplings, not set a new world’s record for a dead lift of frozen food!”
I’m sure we’ll be able to settle all this before the next election.
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