Mini-Fridge

The scene is Summer, 2002. The nervous & excited tension hung in the air like a pair of plaid boxer shorts blowing in the wind on a clothesline in my parents backyard after I had done a load of laundry, but my mom needed the dryer, so I hung the clothes I had just taken out of the washer on the line in the backyard so they wouldn't start to smell all musty and gross, because the ladies don't like musty and gross smelling dudes - even if they actually ARE musty and gross...The ladies just don't like it. Trust me...one of my...uh...friends had a bad experience once...uh...yeah, one of my friends.

It was my last load of laundry to be done at home until Christmas break after my first semester at college rolled around. Possibly my last load of laundry in general until Christmas break. Quarters were hard to come by because everyone I know was saving the State quarters to put in their little State-quarter-holder-thingies so they could show it to their friends and hopefully make (let's see...$.25 x 50...carry the 7...$12.50) Twelve dollars and some change in the future by selling it to a budding novice coin collector on Craigslist who thinks he just scored a great deal, thus creating a laundry-quarter shortage for the semester.

Anyway, I found myself in the midst of packing my s*** for college. I carefully wrapped all my knick-knacks, doohickeys, and gizmos in tissue paper and bubble wrap to ensure their safety and inanimate peace of mind on the 4 hour van trip to Steubenville. I arrived at my new dorm room with visions of grandeur and splendid beauty, only to be confronted with the heart-crushing reality of a Wal-Mart style tile floor, painted cinder block walls, and bland, yet suprisingly durable furniture. Clearly, the comforts of home would be missed without the convenience of a big-screen TV, the fashionability of expensive curtains, and the sqare footage for my orange construction barrel collection.

This all happened before my roommate even arrived. He, surely as shocked as I at the lack of convenience of dorm-style living, provided a simple yet elegant solution to one of the glaring problems with our new-found living situation: a mini-fridge. In an instant, the outlook for the first 3 lonely months of college got just a little bit better. We now had a place to store our precious hot-pockets and canned lemonade. The size just happened to be perfect as well - it was mini, just like our room! It made me feel like I was living the the fake Geico reality TV show "Tiny House" - at least everything was proportionate.

Fast forward 7 years to the present - I just got a mini fridge in my cubicle here at work. An exciting prospect suddenly turned less so when I found out I couldn't store liquor in it due to company policy, but I quickly realized that I could store a 6-pack...of soda in it, or anything I wanted to keep cold, really. At this very moment, it's got a few bottles of water in it, and that's good enough for me.