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Onions from Outer-Space

I have often mentioned that The Boyfriend is a fridge Nazi. He patrols not only his fridge, but those of friends and relatives with the keen eye of a Luftwaffe General. When we first met, I thought he was cleaning out my fridge because he loved me, but really he was fulfilling a strange fridge controlling urge, which has endured for our entire relationship.

My fridge is not to be messed with, only to be messed-up. Because so many of us live here, have packed lunches, are stupidly forgetful, etc, my fridge is now full of UFOs; that is Unidentifiable Foiled Objects. Well, they start off as that, become Unwanted Foiled Objects and finally Uneatable Foiled Objects. Still, no one bothers to throw them away, although The Big Son has been known to suddenly eat them in a fit of blind hunger when they have long passed the third UFO stage.

The Boyfriend no longer lives with me, but is still round enough to keep tabs on alien activity in my fridge. Often, when he has time, he digs among the UFOs on the overcrowded fridge top shelf, triumphantly brandishing a foil-covered jar of jalepeno peppers and accuses me of neglect. I will, naturally, be defensive, claiming they’re only two weeks old, while secretly fully aware I bought them for Halloween two years ago.

“My fridge is not one to be messed with, only to be messed up ”

I know that with Christmas upon us, I shall have to give the fridge a bit of a spring clean, to make way for tempting culinary delights, which will soon arrive wrapped in foil courtesy of The Boyfriend. Eating is by far his favourite thing and he tends to go into eating overdrive on Christmas Day, eating ten times as much as he would on a normal day, unfeasible though it may sound.

Fortunately, there will be no lodgers – foreign or otherwise – to witness this eating extravaganza, as my new lodger will be going back to Southern Italy this week and not returning until the New Year. He moved in at the very last moment a week ago and will be staying at Landlady Towers until March while he improves his rather poor English. He is a very nice man, but I was horrified when he told me that he was only 24 as he has the manner and attitude of a 40-year-old. He also tends to lurk around a little too much for my liking while I’m trying to cook. It has become apparent that he’s rather partial to drinking my Pouilly Fume, and it’s infuriating when, after necking over half a bottle, he pulls a face, saying that French wine is not half as good as that from Southern Italy. Much to my surprise, he pulled a similar face when he saw my new Dyson Vacuum cleaner and explained that his family business – run by himself and his father – is one which specialises in industrial vacuum cleaners. Then, while I was trying to cook the evening meal, he proceeded to log onto the company website and show me every single model and explain the individual benefits of each in great detail. It’s doubly irritating for me, as I only recently bought a new vacuum cleaner and am therefore not in the slightest bit interested in the benefits of the competition.

There is an upside to all this; my lodger will be returning from Italy with lots of cheeses, oils and cured meats, all – he claims – will be winging their way to Stansted stuffed inside one of his vacuum cleaners. Now that really will be a UFO to behold.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 10:55 am and is filed under The Landlady. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.