Last night, Miss Crankypants thought she saw a zombie curled up in her refrigerator. It certainly SMELLED like one. When she opened the door, a foul stench wafted through her kitchen. It was so bad, she would have tossed the whole fridge into the trash if she could. As you might suspect, Miss Cranky has refrigerators on her mind. So let’s talk refrigerators!
Before you scoff, think about how much of our lives are run by the almighty fridge. We’re practically married to our frost-frees and subzero walk-ins! If you doubt it, consider this: your TV has 500 channels and a DVR, but can it keep soda cold? Thought so.
What did our ancestors do without these miracles of the modern age? Our foremothers probably had to keep the ice cream out back, chilling on the glacier. And hope the local saber tooth tiger didn’t help himself to the lunch meat.
Later, folks had root cellars, cold boxes and yes, even ice boxes. When you think about it, it’s a real shame we no longer need a mule-drawn wagon to deliver giant ice cubes to keep our food from going bad. We might appreciate a popsicle more if we only had thirty seconds to suck it down before it melted all over the place. Brain freeze!
And when the first electric refrigerators came out, the freezer compartment was the size of a pencil case. Miss CP knows, because she still has her vintage fridge. If you don’t defrost it once a week, it creates its own mini-ice-age before your very eyes.
And did you know refrigerators were invented to give homemakers a place to store (and totally forget about) LEFTOVERS? 
Miss CP has found more penicillin growing in little burp-lidded dishes than any outbreak of plague might need. But her lifelong mantra has always been, “NEVER waste food.” So no matter how dinky the dab or how pathetic the portion, she can’t bear to throw away food. Into the dark recesses of the Kenmore it goes, unlabeled, uneaten and eventually unfit for human consumption.
But the worst thing about the advent of refrigerators is that at some point they all need cleaning.

Miss Cranky once watched in horror as one of her kids spilled a gallon of red Kool-Aid in the fridge. The interior made the chain-saw massacre seem tame, what with all that red dye number 3 dripping from the crisper drawer. But the fridge got even,l and got GARLICKED.
It took a heckuva lot of baking soda to get out the smell of garlic after a large jar of pre-minced leaked all over the bottom shelves–you know, the ones you can’t reach without taking all the shelves out? Yeah, those. Talk about garlic breath! Miss Cranky had never experienced a fridge with worse breath than the cats.
In fact, she’s still trying to air out the silly fridge. If you walk into her kitchen, resist the urge to ask, “What’s that awful smell?” Miss Crankypants will probably just lie and tell you it’s those darn zombies, looking for a place to chill.