Refrigerators

You know how refrigerators are made nowadays -- they have many different sized shelves to choose from, and the freezer portion is either on the side or the bottom or the top (but now hardly on the top). And the shelves are no longer metal covered in plastic. Now they're just plastic. And long gone are the days of having shelves that stretch fully across the width of the refrigerator with almost, almost the same space between them.

Now we have plastic, chunky shelves. Shelves of different lengths and really different spacing between them. This is supposed to save space, I believe. Giving people different options to store their variously shaped food containers and packages. So we can store even more food in our refrigerators, because we all know Americans aren't nearly fat enough.

I share a communal refrigerator. I need to store a somewhat tall and wide bag every day. I've been doing this for years. And for years, almost every single day when I open the refrigerator, I see a slim sandwich or a hunk of cheese or some other random skinny or small item on the one shelf that has a lot of space for tall items. Such as my bag.

Why? Why do people do this? If I had a slim item, I would go for the shelf that had little head room. Not the shelf that a small animal could easily sit on. So day after day, I am rearranging people's slim food, moving the slim food to the shelf with little head room and then putting my tall bag on the shelf it belongs on.

The only thing I can think that causes people to do this is that they need space. Everyone needs their space, so I guess so does food. But today, there was tons of space on all the shelves, so I don't get why the only items on the roomy shelf were small. It's almost like a showcase for them: "This is my small item, please take the time to look at it and don't be jealous of its smallness."

The problem with me having to move other people's food around to make room for my bag is that I feel somewhat like a food molester. I don't really want to touch other people's food, but I don't want my food going bad. It's a matter of survival.

And while I'm on the subject -- why do people put yogurt containers and the like (the type of food that easily explodes from its container when dropped) in the side shelves? One time I opened the door, and someone's yogurt went flying, hit the floor and exploded in a cloud of pale pinkness. I had to clean up the mess, which was embarrassing enough because I was worried the person would come in at that moment to grab their pink yogurt. Technically, it was their fault for putting it on the side shelf where there was a enough room to store a 3-liter bottle of pop (and no, I'm not Canadian -- I just felt like using the word). But would I have to offer to buy them another yogurt? Or do I stand my ground and blame their thoughtlessness? I wonder if they ever figured out the mystery of their missing yogurt. I would be really perturbed if my food went missing.