TMIT: Fridge FAIL

***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!***

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I arrived home from hours of hangover/airplanes/children I nearly killed on Sunday to discover that the freezer in my awesome new home had defrosted while I was gone. The lights were working and it was obviously running, but everything was no longer frozen. My first thought was that the power must have gone out while I was gone and been out long enough for everything to defrost (even though it was the only 2 days in October it hadn’t rained). I would later discover that neither the freezer nor the fridge were cold and there was some part that had to be replaced, but at the time it was a bit of a mystery.

Babe had been so kind as to pick me up from the airport and come over to stay with me, so when I made this discovery he came down to help me clean everything out of the freezer, as it was obviously ruined. It was lovely really, lots of water and defrosted red meat juice (YUM) and a bunch of food that expired a year ago because my roommate is never home. While we were cleaning it out, I told him the following story, which is actually the TMI part of the post (aren’t you glad I made you read all that other crap first? I thought so).

I studied abroad during the spring semester of my sophomore year of college. After my classes ended, the boyfriend at the time flew over to Europe and we Eurailed our way through Spain, France and Italy before returning to the States. The plan was for me to rent one of his roommate’s bedrooms for the summer, as he had graduated that May and was off to bigger and better things. Being 3 Jewish boys, the roommates had decided that since none of them would be in the apartment for 2 weeks that they would just shut the power off and then turn it back on when we returned in an effort to save money.

No, really. They turned it off.

I was opposed to this idea from the beginning, finding it rather excessive and very aware that I was likely to be the one who suffered somehow, as that’s how my life usually goes. As the end of my semester grew nearer and plans started to solidify, it became clear that I was going to be the first person back in the apartment. I would be jet-setting through Europe for 2 weeks, followed by 30 hours on trains to get from Rome to Madrid, an international flight from Madrid to Dallas via Atlanta, one night in Dallas, a drive to Austin and an “interview” for a job the next day, and my first day of work the following Monday. The boyfriend would be flying from Rome back to Houston and coming back to Austin some time that weekend.

There was a point to all those details, which is this: I was jetlagged, exhausted and STRESSED when I got to Austin.

When it became clear to me that I would be back in the apartment before the boyfriend, I pitched a fit about him being ABSOLUTELY SURE that the power would be on by the time I got back. He assured me that he had scheduled it and all would be well. I, like a fool, believed him and pestered him about it no more.

So I arrived in Austin that Friday to a dark and stiflingly hot apartment (June in Central Texas, anyone?). I moved a bunch of crap up the two flights of stairs into the living room of the apartment and then went into the kitchen to get some ice for a glass of water. I opened the freezer to discover the most horrifying thing I have ever seen in my life. Worse even than cockroaches (though not worse than more than one cockroach…swarming cockroaches literally makes my brain rot with panic)…

MAGGOTS. So many maggots. Crawling on rotted meat, a half open bag of no-longer-frozen pineapple. In the door, in the ice trays, fucking everywhere. It was the. most. disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life.

And the smell. Oh my god. Vomitous does not begin to describe it.

I immediately called the boyfriend (again) to yell at him (again) for thinking it was necessary to turn the power off in the first place. And then I called and left a horrible voicemail for his roommate, who was the last one out of the apartment and tasked with “cleaning out the fridge” before he left. He would later call me back and explain that he thought he was just supposed to clean out the stuff that might go bad in 2 weeks, not everything. It didn’t occur to him that without any power anything in the fridge would go bad in 2 weeks. SO VERY VERY BAD.

Like a trooper, I grabbed a trashbag and started pulling rotting meat carcass out of the damn freezer, freaking the fuck out the entire time. I managed to get all of the food out of the freezer (but not all of the maggots, mind you…not even close) before I had a complete meltdown. I called my former and future roommate, who lived down the street, thank the baby jebus, and managed to communicate through sobs that I needed back up.

And being the best freakin’ friend a girl could ever ask for, she came over armed with elbow length dish gloves and a full bottle of Lysol. She pulled the rest of the food out while I pulled my shit together and then proceeded to drown that appliance in Lysol like it was a rabid kitten on fire. And then we shut the door and left it for the boyfriend to deal with because I had had enough, thankyouverymuch.

The power came back on 2 days later (TWO DAYS!) and the boyfriend came home to a nice, cool, well lit apartment. I made it quite clear that it was his first order of business to deal with the creepy crawly infestation, and do you know what he did while he cleaned it out? He gave me shit because it “wasn’t that bad” and he “couldn’t believe I was so freaked out over this.”

To which I replied “THEY ARE DEAD NOW. TINY LITTLE IMMOBILE WHITE THINGS. I HAD TO DEAL WITH CREEPY WORMY WIGGLY GROSS THINGS. IT IS SO. NOT. THE. SAME.” In all caps like that because, are you fucking kidding me?! Seriously.

That fridge smelled all summer and I wouldn’t eat anything that had been in it. I mean, what if there were a few that had survived? Or he missed some invisible vermin eggs and they had hatched and were planning a sneak attack? It wasn’t worth the risk.