Feb 12, 2018 3 min read

I’ll admit that I have more than my fair share of irrational fears. With luck, I am probably never going to get stuck in quicksand or face off against a spider the size of a mid-level sedan.

Side note: Most of my irrational fears come from episodes of “Gilligan’s Island.”

I hope we can all agree that there is nothing scarier than the office refrigerator. I’m afraid to go in there without backup.

Truthfully, I like to avoid the break room at all costs. I get an hour in the middle of the day where I don’t have to think about work. If I spend it with my co-workers, we’re talking about purchase orders, cost centers or some other office-related gobbledygook. Of course, sometimes I wander in there and my peeps are talking about the latest episode of “This is Us.”

Additional side note: I have never cried during an episode of “This is Us.” I have, however, cheered whenever there was a Pittsburgh reference. We Pittsburghers are a proud folk. I’m a sucker for a Froggy’s or Jerry’s Records reference.

But I digress, like I do. Does everyone deposit random items in the work fridge and forget about them … like for years? I despise seeing all of those unidentified, plastic Tupperware containers. It’s a vast wasteland of mystery food. The worst is when there’s an amorphous glob wrapped in tinfoil. No one is opening that. Once upon a time, it was a silvery swan from a fancy restaurant. Now it’s an ugly duckling – a shimmering blob with an unidentified odor.

Picture it: Back in the day, when I was working for Disney, the accounting department was moving their offices from Burbank to a warehouse in Glendale. We spent the morning packing up files in preparation for the move. Everyone was responsible for their own stuff.

One of the department directors – who will remain nameless because I have forgotten her name – was being transferred to another office. She had a swanky suite. It contained a small refrigerator – bigger than BB8 but smaller than R2D2 (we measured everything in Disney products). She had forgotten to empty the contents of her mini-fridge. It was unplugged on Friday and moved into a new location on Monday – still unplugged!

You needed a Hazmat suit to go into the new office. The smell permeated the entire floor. Since the department director had moved on, I was asked to clean out the refrigerator. Me! The person who gags when someone uses yellow mustard.

I approached the small brown box of evil very cautiously. When I opened the door, I felt like Pandora (the woman from Greek mythology – not the internet radio). I had freed that noxious stench out into the world. Since we were on the first floor, I ran out the front door and threw up in the bushes.

Lesson for the day: Once you vomit into the shrubbery, no one asks you to clean the office refrigerator ever again.