Salli Vates, food blogging since 2002, offers this delightful tale of refrigerator wantonness.
Photo by CarlyJane
“Congratulations,” Jack slapped him on the back. “What does she look like?”
Frank took a sip of his beer and thought a moment. “Well, she’s really cute. Kind of like a classier Britney Spears, blonde hair, great body.”
“Have you been back to her place yet?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” Frank smiled.
Jack chuckled, and then a quizzical look came over his face. “Frank, when you’ve gone home with a girl you really like, have you ever - snooped around her things, like, to get a better idea of what she’s about? I look in the first drawer; that’s where they usually keep their panties.”
“I look in the fridge,” said Frank.
“The fridge!” Jack exclaimed. “Don’t you know that you can tell much more about a woman by her underwear drawer?”
Frank finished his beer and motioned to the bartender to refill his glass. “What can you tell?” he asked.
“Well,” began Jack, “there’s the color. They say if they’re white, that she’s playing innocent - if they’re red, she’s really wild in bed, but if they’re black, watch out.”
Frank tried to remember what color Monica had worn, but he hadn’t the slightest idea; he’d been too busy looking at the rest of her. But he was sure that his friend was wrong. For Frank, a woman’s refrigerator had always been the foolproof indicator of the future of his relationship with her. He thought of Jackie. She’d been fond of quickies, didn’t even want foreplay. And their relationship was over almost before it began. When he’d opened the door of her refrigerator, he saw nothing but leftovers and a half-empty container of lo mein. No substance.
After Jackie, he’d dated Gloria, whose refrigerator was so full of food that Frank was surprised the door actually shut. Most of their dates consisted of her cooking him a huge meal, after which he’d be so stuffed that he could barely sustain an erection. In hindsight, he wondered if that had been Gloria’s strategy. But when he’d broken up with her, she’d sent him layer cakes for weeks. The first week, she sent chocolate raspberry. When Frank had tasted the icing, he’d briefly entertained thoughts of reconciling with Gloria, of giving her the benefit of the doubt. He wondered if maybe he had gotten an erection but just hadn’t seen it underneath his distended belly. His doubt intensified five weeks after the breakup, when he received a particularly sublime strawberry shortcake. By the next week, Frank still hadn’t met anyone remotely interesting, but the cake delivery abruptly stopped. (Soon, he noticed that a friend of his was beginning to put on weight.)
Monica was the kind of girl that Frank couldn’t believe he’d had the good fortune to date. She seemed like she could have any guy she wanted. Frank had only been to her apartment twice, so it was too soon for him to check out her refrigerator. (He’d already made the mistake of premature refrigerator exploration with Janet, who turned out to be completely psychotic. He should’ve known, with that Velveeta-stuffed beef jerky he found in her butter compartment. After they’d had sex for the first time, Frank, while clad only in his boxers, had taken it upon himself to conduct a full-scale inventory of the icebox. However, Janet spent less time in the bathroom than he’d anticipated, and she caught him with his face in the freezer. “You men are pigs!” she shrieked with disgust. “All you want to do is eat and screw!” Frank was so startled that he bruised his nose on a Popsicle. Before he had a chance to explain, he found himself out on the street, half-naked in February. Shivering under the streetlight, he felt woefully misunderstood. He hadn’t been trying to take advantage of Janet; he’d only been trying to better understand her.
“Hey, Frank,” Jack interrupted his thoughts. “You look smashed. Are you going to Monica’s place after this?”
“No, I don’t see her till the weekend.”
“Well, when you do,” burped Jack, “make sure you look in that first drawer and get back to me.”
Frank nodded, but he’d provoked such a horrifying reaction with his refrigerator snooping that he couldn’t bear to think of what Monica would do if she found him looking through her underwear. (She’d probably think he wanted to wear it.)
***
Frank was glad he was on his way to meet Jack at the corner bar. He wasn’t sure Jack would understand, but he’d made an unsettling discovery at Monica’s place, and he had to tell someone.
For the third week of being in a “relationship,” Frank thought he was doing pretty well. He was trying to be a good listener, to abstain from mentioning past girlfriends, and to always put the toilet seat down. This princely behavior had earned him three whole weeks with lovely Monica, and more hours than he could have imagined in her bedroom. Frank was beginning to feel like he could relax a bit. So, on this cheerful Saturday morning, after another romp with Monica, he decided to venture into her kitchen. The coast was clear; she was a on a phone call with her mother.
They had never shared a meal at her apartment, so he hadn’t been able to catch a glimpse of her refrigerator. Monica didn’t seem like the take-out type, but neither did Frank see her as someone whose shelves would be overflowing; she was too - poised. Maybe there would be a Boursin, a carton of organic eggs, a few bottles of Thai condiments. Some plum tomatoes, plain whole-milk yogurt, and perhaps a folded paper package of smoked salmon. Monica would organize all of these items beautifully. There would be no leftovers more than a week old, like at Frank’s place, and there certainly wouldn’t be any Velveeta-stuffed beef jerky in the butter compartment.
With a thrill of anticipation, Frank approached the gleaming white appliance and swung open the door. He looked inside expectantly, and was met by: one lone pimento-stuffed green olive. Its red eye gazed forlornly at Frank as it floated in a small jar, which was the only object in Monica’s refrigerator. The shelves were bare, sterile, devoid of any kind of nourishment.
Frank’s heart sank. In all of his covert explorations, he had never encountered such a dreary display. This could not bode well for the future. Why did she keep that one jar in there, its one green olive calling attention to the harsh vacancy around it? Frank didn’t know, but he didn’t trust women who kept half-empty containers. He believed that a jar should always be full of the promise of potential satisfaction.
Shocked, disappointed and hungry, Frank shut the door and retreated from the kitchen. When Monica finished her phone call, he told her that he felt ill and needed to go home. He realized this was a stupid excuse, as he’d been full of vigor all night, but Monica seemed to accept his explanation. Relieved, he made his exit.
Frank spent the rest of the day watching reruns of Cooking With Claudine, the TV show featuring Jacques Pepin’s slender blonde daughter. Claudine was an amateur, and Frank found it very erotic to watch her learn to cook. He became so engrossed in the show that he almost forgot to meet Jack at the bar, arriving a half-hour late.
“What took you so long?” complained Jack. “Were you at Monica’s?”
“No, I was watching Claudine,” Frank replied.
“Claudine? Oh no,” said Jack. “That’s a bad sign. So - what color were Monica’s panties?”
“I don’t know, Jack. But her fridge was totally empty except for one jar of olives.”
“And what color were the olives?”
“Green.”
Jack puzzled over the color green, but its significance escaped him.
“Well, Frank,” he offered, “maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Yesterday I went to this girl’s place, and when I looked in her underwear drawer, it was empty! Turns out the girl doesn’t even own a pair, and she’s much wilder than all the ones who have worn red panties.”
Jack paused to request another beer and some change for a five-dollar bill. “So,” he continued, “she blew my system right out of the water. Couldn’t you be wrong about the refrigerator thing too?”
Frank pondered this dilemma while the bartender set down Jack’s glass. “But I’ve been right every time,” he mused.
“Excuse me,” said the bartender. “I don’t mean to butt in, but your friend is right.”
Frank looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“What I’m saying is, you guys have been coming into this bar for as long as I’ve been working here, and all you talk about is fridges and panties. And let’s face it, neither one of you seems to be having much luck with women.”
“Hey!” Jack interjected.
“No, let him finish,” said Frank, intrigued.
“Thank you,” said the bartender. “The point is that you two seem really afraid to get to know women. And let me tell you, there are much better ways to do so than analyzing their underwear or groceries.” The bartender handed Jack his five singles and moved to the other end of the counter. “It’s really the kind of beer they drink,” he muttered to himself.
Fortunately, Frank didn’t hear this last bit of advice.
“Well, pal,” said Jack, “it’s something for you to think about. Listen, I’ve got to run.”
“Hot date?”
“You guessed it.”
“With who?” Frank wondered.
“With the girl who wears no panties.” Jack grinned, left a tip, and practically skipped out of the bar.
Dejected, Frank drained the rest of his beer and considered the bartender’s advice. It was true that his luck with women was less than spectacular. All of his relationships had been short-lived and had ended on a sour note. But hadn’t he developed the refrigerator system to avoid repeating the same mistakes? On the other hand, could it be that the very method he’d been employing was actually responsible for his high failure rate? Jack was the only guy Frank knew who had worse luck with women; tonight, he was out for an encore performance with some hot number while Frank drank alone at the bar.
He decided to go home. Upon walking into his apartment, he heard voices, then realized that he’d just left the TV on. It was nine-thirty; Jack and his date would have finished dinner by now. Frank wondered if there would be any leftovers. Sighing, he went into the kitchen for some Doritos and noticed that the red light was flashing on his answering machine. One message.
He pushed the “play” button, and heard Monica’s concerned voice asking him if he was feeling better. Frank took a deep breath and picked up the phone.
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