WHEN MARY JANE TOOK DOWN A REFRIGERATOR.

WHEN MARY JANE TOOK DOWN A REFRIGERATOR. Mary Jane made this comment on the year-struck website in response to a post about the language of door slamming.

“My very best door slam took place when I was a teenager, quarreling with my mother, of course. I was taking something out of the refrigerator, and before I could shut its door, my mother said something. God knows what she said, but something that was, clearly, unbearably provocative. It was, in fact, the Last Straw. And so I slammed the refrigerator door. And as she stalked towards me, we both heard a noise that stopped us both in our tracks.
It was a click, click, click sound coming from the refrigerator. She slowly opened the door, and each one of the shelves on the door filled with jellies and butter and pickle relish, oh you know, tipped out onto the floor, the stuff rolling all over. It was breath-taking. My father came into the kitchen and when he had finished blaspheming, he said, I’ll wire it up, good as new. Which we thought he could do. Which we thought he had done. But, alas, the ways of the refrigerator are not our ways. The shelves held, the shelves held, and then, all of a sudden, we would hear an unprovoked click, click, click coming from the inside of the refrigerator. And we knew then, a refrigerator never forgets.”