A Short Story (it's fiction I swear)

Mrs. Refrigerator



Swoozy opens her refrigerator door and scouts out the creamer, there it is on the top shelf behind the sticky jar of strawberry jelly and beside the empty pickle jar. She pushes the unwanted objects out of the way with one hand and grabs the creamer with the other. Anxious for her cup of coffee this chilly morning she shakes the creamer. What’s this? No sloshing? No nothing? She lifts the carton up and down feeling its weight. It certainly was not empty. Swoozy sighed heavily and turned a scowling glare towards the refrigerator, for it has done it again!

“Listen Mrs. Refigerator and listen carefully.” Swoozy demanded.
“I am sick and tired of you changing your own temperature! I’ve had to deal with frozen milk, creamer, juices and you’ve even started cracking my eggs. Why are you doing this to me?” Swoozy asked this not expecting an answer, after all she wasn’t crazy and she didn’t really think a refrigerator could talk, but perhaps for this reason or because she gave her refrigerator a name; the refrigerator talked back.

“You don’t have to shout at me you know, I’m right here and if I were you I would be careful of how you talk to me. I do hold all of your food you know,” chortled Mrs. Refrigerator.
Swoozy’s mouth dropped and she looked around the kitchen and found she was the only one there. Before she could say anything the refrigerator talked again or more like rattled.
“Perhaps I wouldn’t freeze your food if you wouldn’t slam my doors so much, I’ve actually come up with a list of things you should do to keep me running smoothly and not freezing your creamer and such. I’m sorry it had to come to this but you weren’t listening to me, but now I see I have your attention.”

Before Swoozy’s eyes the magnetic alphabet letters began to move and formed a list on Mrs. Refrigerator’s door. It read as follows:

Don’t leave sticky jars on my shelving, that’s disgusting.
Do not stand with door’s open searching for snacks. It lets all the cold air out which makes me work harder and I’m too old for that.
Do not shove and squeeze frozen foods up top, I happen to know you have a perfectly good freezer in the basement.
Keep your children out because they constantly turn my knobs. It might help if you didn’t tell them there was a little man turning the light on and off.
There really is NO little man turning the lights on and off.
Check the crispers (those are the things that hold your fruits and veggies) for moldy grapes and spills.
I would like an open box of Baking Powder on my shelf.
Finally, don’t let your leftovers become “suspicious” it smells awful.

Swoozy managed to say, “Okay, Mrs. Refrigerator I will keep all of those things in mind, I’ll even get the baking powder out for you right now.” Swoozy took the baking powder out of the baking cabinet, half expecting it to tell her to give it back, and slowly opened the refrigerator’s door. She quickly placed it on the top shelf and pulled her arm out even faster.
“For goodness sakes I’m not going to bite,” said Mrs. Refrigerator.
“Sorry,” said Swoozy
After a moment of thought Swoozy worked up enough nerve to ask Mrs. Refrigerator a question, “So does this mean we’ll be talking from now on or….” Swoozy trailed off not knowing exactly what to ask a refrigerator.
There was nothing but the humming of the refrigerator to answer her. She waited for a few minutes before turning her back to the counter and pouring her creamer. “That’s strange it’s not frozen anymore,” She thought.

Swoozy spent all day keeping what happened to herself and thinking maybe it had all been a dream, but those pesky letters were still arranged into that list. When her husband came home he read the list out loud and laughed. With some hope she asked, “Did you make that list hunny?”
“Don’t be silly Swoozy, I know you did it. I think it’s great you want to take better care of our Fridge” He said.
Swoozy sunk back down into her chair and said, “Oh yeah, silly me. I was just teasing.”

For years afterward Swoozy fussed over Mrs. Refrigerator. There was never a cleaner refrigerator than Mrs. Refrigerator. Swoozy’s husband and children were reprimanded many a time for disobeying the list that never moved off of the Refrigerator door. If a child rearranged the letters it wasn’t long after they left the kitchen that the letters moved themselves back in order. Everyone assumed it was Swoozy that put them back but only she and Mrs. Refrigerator knew the truth of it. Family often wondered why Swoozy never wanted to replace her refrigerator for a new one. It was partly out of fear and partly because she reasoned that Mrs. Refrigerator was decent enough and who knew what a new refrigerator might be like. It wasn’t until Swoozy was an old woman living in a retirement home (Where there were no refrigerator’s except in the cafeteria kitchen) when she finally told her secret. Her family laughed it off as a silly joke from an old bored woman, but Swoozy knew the truth and was happy to finally tell her tale.