The Fridge Puzzle

Supper is over. I survey the dining table before me and bless the lord for my cup hath truly runneth over.

(I am not religious so I do not say my blessings out loud, but I do feel thankful).

"Let's cleanup, and call it a day", I suggest. My wife volunteers to do the dishes, so it is my job to put all the stuff back in place. a.k.a. "Solve the 3-D Fridge Puzzle".

Theoretically this should be fairly easy as we have a large fridge, but as I take the first batch of things from the table to the fridge, I notice it is already more than half full:

"Did all of THAT come from HERE?" I wonder. “Well where else could it have come from?” 

But I'm up to the challenge. Cottage cheese goes here. Hummus goes there, olives over there. The salads are a bit tricky as we have three large bowls. "Can I mix the salads?" I ask my wife. "Not if you want the kids to eat them" she replies. How silly of me: One of them contains peppers (no-no for elder daughter) and one cabbage (no-no for the boys). The third is known as "kids’ salad" and it goes in first. Pepper salad is only half full so I put it in a smaller bowl. There is only a little of cabbage so it goes in a small plastic container and now they all fit. Next comes the quiche. No way this is going to fit in. But the baking pan is only 1/3 full so I move it to a smaller pan. This has the added advantage that it is my wife who will be washing the baking pan. (Well not really, she just fills it with water "to ease out the sticky parts" and it will be me, tomorrow, who will end up washing it. Never mind. Smaller pan also does not fit, so I move the cheeses. Yogurt to the left and voila: Quiche is in. A few more knickknacks and we're done. Table is clean. I've solved today's fridge puzzle!

I smile at my wife, but my smile quickly fades as I notice in the corner of my eye the large soup pot on the stove sheepishly begging: "fridge me".

OK. We need more creative tactics. I open both fridge doors and survey the terrain: I got it! 

"Hey, did you know we can stack the egg cartons one on top of the other?" Yellow ooze from the bottom carton indicates that apparently we cannot. EMERGENCY! I stop everything to clean up the mess. A couple of minutes later I'm back at my challenge. Meanwhile two thankful cats are happily mewing: "You should try that more often". Normally they get dry cat food instead of fresh eggs.

So, this puzzle calls for drastic measures: I start digging into the cold dark depths of the fridge "where no man has gone before" (well at least since last week). I take out a bunch of thing as I dig ever deeper, until finally, I get my first "break" - a rice dish I made "When was it? Ah, eight days ago". As much as I hate throwing food, none of us need extra calories so there is not a chance in the world someone will eat an eight days old rice dish. Out to the trash it goes, freeing up quite a bit of precious space. As often happens in archeological sites, when you peel off one layer you find underneath another one even more archaic: "Oooh, I did not know tomatoes could get to be this color"...

By now I've reached bedrock. But at last the large pot of soup fits right in.

My sense of relief is short lived as I assess the pile of things on the counter. Somehow it seems almost as big as the pile I started with on the dining table, but apparently, now it is all downhill. Moving catchup to the side door, finding yet again a better place for the cottage cheese, yogurt back to the right, now this and that and...

We are done!

Not quite - the door does not close. 

!@$# 

Wait! It’s only the tilted catchup bottle that blocks it. "Sit straight you catchup!" and the door closes with a soft "swoosh". 

Hurray, I've solved the fridge puzzle for the day! By now, I'm also ready for bed.