Monday, July 14, 2008

Moved by the Mac & Cheese


Friday night (don't judge) I spent cleaning. I inherited my apartment's lease from my older brother when he moved out of Birmingham. The thing about gradual transitions is that you never quite get the other person's stuff totally out, then it gets all mingled with your stuff and the stuff gets comfortable and attached to itself and just stays forever. Enter: the pantry.
The pantry has been the bane of my Birmingham existence. Ok, so it's no freezer (don't ask), but it is pretty bad. I have a problem with throwing things away, especially when they're pantry items. Items that take forever to expire. So I decided to make it easy. Anything that was expired, and therefore put into said pantry by my brother, would go.
Three garbage bags and one "come to Jesus" talk with the pantry (and my stingy, saving soul) later, I'd purged the pantry of no fewer than eight boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese (Exp. 2002), two boxes Samoas (purchased in 2006), and a handful of "soup on the go" (Exp. 35a.d.).
Now here's a secret you don't know about me: if something is unstable in my life, I clean. I take my angst over being unable to control a certain thing and exert it over some innocent, unknowing plot of floor, closet, carpet, or pantry and attack it until it makes sense again. I do it with laundry, sorting files, arranging the fridge. Everything. So much so that when B showed up later that night, he walked in, paused, and said "baby? you...ok?"
Gotta love someone who knows you that well. And loves you anyway, even if he is a little scared.

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