tedwords

For the past three months, Bette Davis has been living in our fridge.

It all started as a lark. I was looking for an interesting image for a story I was working on about Joan Crawford's digestive woes in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? . At the time, the idea of positioning Bette Davis among the ketchup and jelly seemed funny to me.

Perversely enough, three months later, she's still amusing me, every time I open up the fridge door and start poking around the second shelf. I don't know, it just makes the interior seem just a little bit happier.

"I have got to clean out that refrigerator," remarked Corb this evening, after I closed the fridge and started sniggering to myself, once again. "Those shelves are awful."

"Just don't get rid of Bette Davis," I replied. "She's happy in there."

"Bette Davis is the FIRST thing that's going to go," he said, firmly. "Her days are numbered."

"She's comfortable in there. She told me so. Please, please don't get rid of Baby Jane, Corbie!"

Corb looked at me as though I were insane. "What are you going to do, keep Bette Davis in the fridge forever?"

I grinned. "Why not? If Prince Albert can live in a can..."

"Why don't you switch it out?" he asked.

"Actually, I've thought about that," I replied, and he flashed me a "why am I not surprised" look. "You see, I think every refrigerator should have a BHAG in their fridge."

"Wait. Isn't that a 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal'?"

"No, it's an aging B-movie actress. Listen, I'm going to do it. I'm going to switch Bette out with Joan Crawford, soon. Maybe Tallulah Bankhead could spend some time in there, too."

"Okay, fair enough," said Corb. "But the minute you stick Arnold in the fridge, I'm raising hell!"

And then, for some reason, he started nagging me about my irrational fear of storing food in the dark lingering corners of refrigerators. Corb is convinced that it's more efficient to use the entire length of the shelf. And he also can't believe that I worry about things like that, but have no problem trying to put butter back inside, even after it had been mistakenly left outside overnight.

Silly man. Well, if he dies of food poisoning, don't say I didn't warn him.