The refrigerator. My kitchen nemesis. I just don't understand what goes on in there. I open the door, I put food in, I open the door, I take food out. Why does it routinely look like a bomb went off in there? What exactly is that gelatinous mass in the corner that is threatening to take over the celery? Why did someone feel the need to eat half a Pop-Tart, put the rest in the bag, and hide it in the produce drawer? Why am I the only person in this house who doesn't subscribe to the "if the door doesn't close, just push it harder philosophy?"

I do not remember actually having to CLEAN out a refrigerator in my single days. Sure, I threw out expired and unused food on a semiregular basis. I probably had two or three jars of pickles that were a month or two past their expiration date, and of course, there was that one jar of fancy mustard that I just had to buy for that extra fancy date night meal and never used more than one spoonful of it. That was it, though; nothing like the chaos that reigns in there today.I never had to spend 30 minutes pouring boiling water into the kids' snack drawer to remove whatever exploded out of the lunch bag that they casually tossed in there. I never had to peel Go-Gurt wrappers whose cartoon characters were already in their third movie sequel off the back of the refrigerator because someone had eaten half of one and saved the rest for later."I'm saving that for later" sends chills up my spine. That is never going to end well for me and the refrigerator.Our current refrigerator has to be the most poorly designed unit on the planet. Note to self: waiting until the fridge actually gives out to start shopping for a new one, not one of your better ideas. Sure, the WH and I had discussed getting a larger fridge. Having children who inhale milk, or at least feel obligated to leave half-empty glasses of it in every room of the house, in an offering to some mystical cow god that they apparently worship, necessitates a fridge that can hold more than one gallon at a time. However, we failed to do our research, and on the day that the fridge decided to take a trip south to a balmy 60 degrees on the inside, we went into panic mode.You can hardly blame us for being swayed by the magical "disappearing" shelf that instantly slides into a pocket and creates enough room for two more gallon jugs. The lure of extra milk storage, combined with the immediate need for refrigeration, and we had ourselves a very large, white lemon.The manufacturers failed to mention that the shelf was so magical that it required barely more than a whisper to slip itself right into the pocket, creating a rather disastrous version of that magic trick where the magician whisks the tablecloth right out from under an entire table of china. This trick is especially awesome when combined with the aforementioned half-empty (definitely not half-full) glasses of milk that have been "saved for later."In addition to the magic shelf, the "cold cuts" drawer was another real winner. When I brought the first full load of groceries home and started stocking four different kinds of cheeses, three different kinds of ham, two flavors of turkey, and a bag of salami in the drawer, it promptly snapped off its tracks. The WH and I examined every inch of the drawer and read and reread the owner's manual. Nowhere did it say that the meat drawer was rated for less than 4 pounds of meat.After a week of not being able to find "the right" cheese for someone's sandwiches, I had enough and went to the basement and grabbed the first industrial adhesive I could find. Unfortunately for the fridge, the epoxy that I cemented the cold cut drawer tracks back on with dried to an awful, gross looking yellow. So, now my fridge looks like someone sneezed all over the sides of the cold cut drawer. That sucker stays put, though, and I've even thrown the leftover Christmas ham in there and it hasn't budged.At the very least, I wish that the inside wasn't all white and shiny. Do they make refrigerators in a color that doesn't show the dirt? I am going to start doing my research now. However, I have a feeling that this fridge will never die.Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.