I am giddy, expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense.
~ William Shakespeare
(Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 2)
I have this habit of accumulating, and never using, relish.
On one of my many moves, I remember going through the refrigerator, cleaning it out, throwing away spoiled food, and determining what (if anything) would be making the move with me. In amongst the forgotten leftovers were no fewer than four containers of relish. One was so old and crusty I was afraid to look at how old it actually was, two appeared to have been opened and used only once, and one had never actually been opened at all.
I don’t really even really like relish, and a couple of them were smallish squeeze bottles, so all I can think of is that someone (maybe me!) bought one of those ketchup/mustard/relish combo packs for a BBQ, and after his compatriots were long since used up, the relish had been relegated to live out his days in the back of my fridge for some reason.
But then again, this is nothing really new. My fridge was notorious for being mostly filled with condiments. I lovingly blame my parents for this, and I feel safe in saying that if you were to go look in their fridge right now you would see more condiments than anything else. We Routlys like puttin’ stuff on stuff, I suppose…
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This happens to me, too. Condiments somehow manage to get neeaaarrly used up and then progress to that awkward stage in their lifecycle where there’s too much left to throw them out but it’s too old and crusty to actually be used. I cleaned out the fridge less than a month ago and already the condiments are breeding, overflowing their traditional in-door grounds. Gotta do something about that.
Do you remember how BAAAAAD Kirks fridge was when he lived on his own? Well now that I’m his roomate… hahah I cleaned out our fridge this spring. We had 5 bottles of different types of soy sauce… and they were all KIRKS! And you should have seen what I threw out last night… blech!
As a Routly I must have you know that I have managed to keep the condiment department of my fridge to a minimal 1/2 section of the door! The key? If you rarely ever cook any “stuff” you rarely ever have a need to put “stuff” on “stuff.”