This Morning I was sitting on my bed and pulling on my socks listening to my refrigerator talk. There is a brief moment in the morning after my shower when I am pulling on my socks that my brain shuts down. I sit on the edge of my bed and stare off into space, the bare minimum of neurons firing to keep my heart beating. After a little while the Id, Ego and SuperEgo duke it out for a little bit for dominance. The SuperEgo usually wins because it likes to be able to eat. I then haul myself off the bed with the weight of a thousand suns on my shoulders and I shuffle off to work.
So this morning I was sitting on my bed staring into space and drooling when I heard my fridge start to talk. It has not actually gained the ability for full speech just yet. Instead it will periodically mutter out a few high-pitched syllables. But it has been getting better. Every now and then the fridge will get really excited about something and chatter away. If it makes a particularly interesting point the drain in the sink with acknowledge it with a noncommittal 'glurp'.
So as I was listening to it chatter away this morning, I began to wonder why environmentalist did not hate refrigerators. They seem to embody everything that environmentalist hate. It's an energy hog. Shut off all the lights and TV's in your house and go look at your meter and it will still be merrily spinning away because of the fridge. Power pants as well all know, are powered by awful things like coal and fissionable atoms and little brown third world babies. In fact, as I think about it, the refrigerator is the only appliance in my house that does not have an 'off' switch. Like your heart, it is in the center of the house and always throbbing away. Being a bachelor, there have been times when all this energy has been used to cool of two onions, a packet of soy sauce, and an empty cardboard beer six pack container.
There is also the fact that it is full of freon. Freon was the big evil of the 90's. We all learned about the evil hole in the ozone. Cosmic rays were going to slip through this hole and give us all skin cancer and twist our chromosomes and we were all going to have to live underground for ten thousand years and raise herds of blonde bimbo girls with 60's style hairdo's to eat. Then Al Gore came along and told us that since we did not vote for him the real danger to the world was global warming. And who can deny that? Been outside lately? It's hot as hell. Must be that global warming. Global warming seems to fire up a lot this time of year. With this new bogyman the hole in the ozone does not seem as bad. Skin cancer is one thing, at least you aren't HOT.
With all those evils packed into one little appliance, you would think people would want to ban the things. That there would be great fridge-burning raids. People caught up in a self righteous fury would roll their fridges into the street and cover them with gas and light them up, the whole time dancing around it and cheering. But no, the fridge sits in the corner, an innocent little angel, quietly keeping hippies granola and sushi cold, never bearing the brunt of anyone's wrath.
In fact the only time you hear someone say 'I hate my fridge' is when it's no longer working properly. When you pull out your block of cheese and its warm and mushy and had little sweat beads on it. That is when you get angry at your fridge. But only because you want a new one. One that works. One that loves you so you can love it back.
I finished pulling on my clothes and walked out of the house. I swear I thought I heard my fridge cheerfully say 'good bye' from the kitchen. However, I did not say anything back. Because that would just be crazy, wouldn't it?
2026 Update
Dialing back to 2006, where Ed is losing a psychological war to an appliance that won't shut up.
Ah, 2006, when a man's worst nightmare was a refrigerator whispering in tongues. Twenty years on, and the appliance has not only learned full speech — it has a camera, a screen, and a monthly subscription for the ice dispenser. The fridge does your grocery shopping now, Ed, and it judges you for the soy sauce packets. Your freon panic aged into something even more delicious: we stopped worrying about the hole in the sky and started feeding our data to every glowing box in the kitchen. The sink's noncommittal glurp has been replaced by push notifications from apps asking if you really want to eat leftovers. And the truly modern horror? Nothing has an off switch. Not the fridge, not the stove, not the front door, not your own brain while it scrolls. You at least had to sit on your bed and listen; we pay for the privilege of being listened to. The fridge won, Ed. It always was going to win.
“2006 Ed, you let the fridge chat away all morning and didn't even say goodbye back — was that icy silence really the hill you wanted to die on, or do you still owe that appliance an apology?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you got me there. I sat there on the edge of the bed, one sock on, one sock off, brain shut down, listening to that damn fridge chatter away about whatever refrigerators chatter about—probably the electric bill, or maybe those two onions and the soy sauce packet. And then I just walked out. Icy silence? More like morning brain silence. I can barely manage a grunt at my cats before coffee, so sophisticated fridge banter was way out of the question. But yeah, I probably owe it an apology. It keeps my beer cold, my cheese from sweating, and it never once complained about cooling an empty cardboard six-pack container. That's a loyal appliance. So next time it mutters something cheerful, I'll try to grunt back. Maybe. If the sink glurps in agreement, then we'll know it's the right thing to do.
