Sometimes it pays to be lazy

by Maria Geraci

Yesterday, I was sitting on the couch catching up on the shows on my DVD when I decided to get something out of the freezer. Okay, I'll just get this out of the way and admit it was ice-cream. An ice-cream Snickers bar, to be exact.

So I got my ice-cream Snickers bar and put the box back in the freezer, when something horrific happened. I couldn't shut the door back again. It was stuck. Like something was in the way. Only I couldn't easily find what that something was.

Let me give you a little background on this fridge. It's old. Like 20 years old. But it still runs perfectly and with 2 kids in college I'm not replacing my fridge anytime soon unless forced.

So with my rapidly melting Snickers bar in hand and the rest of Chicago Fire to catch up on, I was faced with a dilemma: Take the time to figure out what was causing the freezer door to stick, or enjoy my ice-cream and my show.

Anyone who knows me, knows I choose Option B. Yes, I have always preferred instant gratification.
Now, I will preface this to say that I didn't have anything expensive in the freezer. No big cuts of meat or anything. As a matter of fact, probably the most valuable thing in the freezer at the time was the rest of those ice-cream Snickers bars.

So I enjoyed my ice-cream and my show and by the time I got back to the freezer some of the stuff in the bottom drawer had began to melt. I went to the garage and got the biggest trash bag I could find and began tossing stuff away, which mainly consisted of countless bags of tired looking frozen vegetables and other semi-frozen products of questionable origin. Once I had that bottom drawer cleared, a miracle happened. I was able to close my freezer drawer. Mystery solved!

But of course, I couldn't stop there. I emptied out the rest of that freezer, scrubbed it down with soap, rinsed it out and now it shines like the top of the Chrysler building. I was on a roll. So I figured why stop there?

Next, it was the oven. Yes, it's self-cleaning, but hey, someone has to push the button to start the process.

The microwave and stovetop came next.

Then my pantry.

My husband came home from work to find me in a flurry of kitchen activity. Not exactly the activity he would have preferred at that point (which would have been me cooking dinner) but hey, I now had a near spotless kitchen. With a freezer door that easily opens and shuts and lots of room for more stuff.

I'll be honest. If I had chosen Option A, I would have quickly discovered I had too much stuff in the bottom drawer, rearranged a few frozen vegetable bags, been able to close my freezer door and gone back to my cozy couch and my tv. I'd also still have a messy kitchen.

The moral of my little story? Sometimes procrastination wins the day.