pegkerr | You have got to be kidding me

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You have got to be kidding me

This "tip" was included with a series of e-mail tips I received from the Dollar Stretcher today:

I save time and energy with a little housecleaning trick I learned from a friend. If you've ever scrubbed the sticky goo from the top of your refrigerator, you understand how cooking oil and smoke can mix with dust and make a mess. Now I just cover the top of the fridge with a layer of clear plastic wrap. When it gets dirty, I peel it off and throw it away, and then I replace it with a new layer. Whenever I can take short cuts and eliminate even a small portion of housecleaning, I'm happy.

Ordinarily, I like the tips I get with Dollar Stretcher, but I'll have to admit that when I read this, I thought, Lady, what kind of stuff are you smoking? Do you expect me to care what the top of my refrigerator looks like? Ever???

Jeez. Get a life. One that doesn't involve worrying about the tops of refrigerators.

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I wonder if height might be an issue in the attention one gives one's fridge? I don't know how tall you are, but I'm about 6' tall--so the top of my fridge is below my eye level, and while I don't clean it routinely, I do see how much dirt it accumulates and the space is functional for my kitchen (the microwave sits there). My grandmother, who is about 5' tall, has to use a ladder to see the top of her fridge, doesn't use the space, and consequently cares little what it looks like.

It may involve, as you say, the height of the person, or it may be the height of the fridge--some older ones are rather short--or it may be the position of the fridge in the kitchen. If there are no cupboards above it and no wall beside it, the top might be fairly easily seen.

Probably also (in addition to those factors) the amount of use the top of the fridge gets put to. As the tallest person in my house, I find the top of the fridge to be a useful place to put things to keep them out of the baby's reach whic has the added bonus of being a space I won't be competing with Angel for.

Consequently, I'm moving things around so much on the top of the fridge that it never has time to get dirty.

This is exactly what I thought. My cousin's husband blew up at her early in their marriage because she was such a half-assed housekeeper (this is a second cousin who's nearly 70, so expectations were somewhat different), and his example was that it looked to him as though she had not wiped off the top of the fridge in the six months they'd been married. She silently marched him into the kitchen, held her hand out at her own line of sight at 5'2", then reached up to indicate his at 6'4", then handed him a rag. He never said another word about it.

Good for her!

And why do the short girls ALWAYS get the tall men?? Listen shorty, leave the tall ones for the rest of us, YOU take the short men!

Why is it that I've never heard this directed at the tall men who are in relationships with short women? Just to the women.

Because human relationships, like all mammals, are dictated by female choice.

(Only partly snarky, here. Female choice gets so underrated that I like to make competing overrating claims.)

I'd like to thing that human relationships are more about mutual choice (at least in the optimal circumstances), but I see your point.

Just smarting from the many rounds of yelling at that I've gotten when some tall woman perceives me to be "stealing" from her prospective pool.

At one point, all the men I'd dated were in the 6' range, but since then my partners' heights have ranged from 4'11" to 6'4" (to my 5'2").

I dunno, it's a valid point. Maybe it's because we perceive the woman as in control with regard to starting new relationships?

Let me amend:

And why do the tall men ALWAYS pick the short women?? Listen buster, leave the short women alone they have all the short men to pick from!

Incidentally, my grandpa was tall and he picked my short grandma to marry. My short cousin picked a tall man for her husband too. Go figure. :-)

*grin*

Thanks. Incidentally, the man I'm about to marry (who is 6'3"), when he was writing out a list of "dream characteristics" for his concept of an ideal mate, did have "tall" written down. I'm not sure how I fit that qualification, at 5'2". ;) (And I'd once vowed not to be involved with anyone over 12" taller than me.)

Mysterious, I tell you.

I vowed not to be involved with a guy that I look eyeball to eyeball with or one that I can peer over. :-)

They do seem to run a little to the short side round here. Must be the lack of sunshine stunting guy growth. The girls seem to get taller though. Someone should do a study. :-)

I am 5'2. Husband is 6'2. Our daughter is in the 95% for her height. I am thrilled. At her age, I was in the 10%. Short sucks. People acquaint it with incapable and young. My daughter will most certainly be 5'6 or taller. Thanks to the husband.

It's funny but no one ever mistook my Grandma or my cousin (both 5'0) for incapable. I'm not sure about the seeming too young part, I'd guess no. They both had/have a power about them that stood/stands no nonsense.

And 5'6 is no picnic either. Sure I can reach almost everything I want but I can't find a fella about 6'0 tall to date 'cause they all hooked up with the teeny girls. :-)

We used the top of our refrigerator for overflow storage - the waffle iron lived there, along with a couple of other things. And it was just barely above eye-level, so I did kind of see it sometime. I really noticed it when I was getting something down from it. It probably got cleaned once or twice a year.

Admittedly, her cleaning solution wouldn't really work for my situation - the plastic wrap on the refrigerator would be too slippery to put things on!

Hmm. My brother, growing up, had sever asthma and extremely severe allergies to dust, dust mites, dust bunnies -- anything relating to dust. So every surface in the house was kept meticulously clean, in the hopes of keeping his attacks. This is exactly the sort of trick my mom used constantly. We were, however, a special case, and I don't think ordinary households would need to be anywhere near so neurotic.

Haha, that actually sounds like a fantastic idea to me! Glad makes that new Cling press-and-seal wrap stuff that would probably work well on top of the fridge.

Housecleaning practices are definitely demonstrative of personal preference, that's for sure.

It's still a great idea; I think I'm going to cover all the surfaces in the house with cling wrap ...

*dies laughing*

When you're buying supplies for the Pool Party, be sure to buy lots of plastic wrap . . . (heh!)

According to Wife (5'-2"), the tops of refrigerators do not exist. They are mythical. I could put a diamond tiara up there and she'd never see it.

They are mythical - the place between worlds and the time out of mind where the flashlight, extra batteries, the key to the chest freezer and the spare cell phone go. It can only be reached by hopeless halflings like me with the aid of a mysterious force called the Kit 'chin Chare.

Wife has been known to access that mythical realm by invoking the rare and elusive h'sb'nd.

I live now in a strange and wonderful place where the "top of the fridge" is also my counterspace. Yay for well-designed galleys!

Ah, but does your galley allow a 6' human to stand up straight? The ones I've sampled, that's the trade-off....

Our galley allows a 6'3" human to stand up mostly straight. (His head actually brushes the underside of the deck, but he can stand up straight with clearance just a foot toward centerline from the galley, under one of the hatches.

At 5'2" I don't much care about the top of the fridge, but maybe I can Saran Wrap the dog to keep her from shedding. Or the car - yeah, the car! And the range hood, and the piano and that little spot behind the jewelry box on my dresser!

Sheesh.

Think I'll stick to Saran Wrapping leftovers.

Do you know anyone who has slipcovers on all their furniture?

B

Actually, yes. They're cloth slipcovers with elastic thingees to hold them on, like fitted sheets. Rather than vacuuming the dog hair and gunk off the couches, they take off the slipcovers and throw them in the washing machine. It's also a very fast way to clean up for company. The cloth is soft and close to the same color as the couches. Though it's not as nice as the upholstery they're trying to protect, I think it's better than what my parents did when I was growing up, which was to keep the "company" furniture in a separate room where nobody went except on a handful of very special occasions.

I was really disappointed when I read this, because I was hoping it would be a trick for removing sticky goo. I have a cookie baking pan that has that nasty combination of oil and whatever that has hardened into a plastic-like state that can't be scrubbed off.

I'm probably just going to toss it and buy a new one, unless there's some easy way to get it off that I haven't discovered.

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

AKA the Sponge of Doom.

Those things are particularly good for taking off that sticky grease-dust stuff from surfaces. Rumor has it they contain all sorts of toxic nasty stuff, though, so if you use one to scrub out a cookie sheet or a pot, wash it well when you're done.

Steel wool? Vinegar? If you've tried those, then, yeah, I'd toss it. (That's for baked on goo. For sticky goo like label residue, I use mayonnaise.)

Dude, I'm an almost neat freak and even I don't give a flying fuck about the top of my fridge...

yah. not to mention, if you care about the top of your fridge being disgusting, don't you also care if it's covered with disgusting plastic wrap?

although my own first reaction was 'god, what a waste of resources.' it is why i have so far resisted buying a swiffer, because i refuse to clean with something that has to be thrown away. that seems to be a trend in cleaning products lately, and i find it incredibly self-absorbed. (ahem. ending rant now.)

*snrk*

was that pun intentional or accidental?

hah. well, i wish i could claim it was entirely intentional and yes, i really am that brilliant... but i would be lying. sadly.

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You have got to be kidding me

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because it gives our kids a fighting chance

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self-absorbed?

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