Fridge Magnets

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Ok, so it's the end of January. Usually by this time I am sitting in a pool of depression, pondering how I have already managed to break all of my new year's resolutions within the first month.

However I am glad to say that this year is different.

This year have been far more efficient about the whole thing, and have managed to break all except two of my resolutions by the 10th of January!

One of the two I kept, of course, was 'No more procrastination' . With this I believe I have done quite well, considering how straight to the point I've been with regards to breaking the others.
 
Instead of thinking of having a (social) cigarette, and delaying the whole issue, I became a newly decisive person and actioned my thoughts without hesitation.  As I did with white bread, tv watching, beer consumption, and all the other things I had foolishly written on my 'to give up' list for 2013.

Written? Yes - I'm afraid my 2013 Resolutions have been written down, brightly recorded in purple crayon and displayed in the public domain. That is if the public should choose to step into our kitchen (I continue to invite the Top Billing tv crew on a regular basis, but have had no response as yet  perhaps I should have got Mrs Ed to wash the dishes before taking the pictures)

 “But where?” I hear you ask (have you nothing better to do with your time?) “Where in one's kitchen would one display such documented evidence of the promises one has made for the year?” (My! You DO sound posh!)

Why, isn't it obvious? 

The fridge of course!

No, not IN the fridge, ON the fridge.

Which leads me to the OTHER resolution I intend to keep.  Let me explain.  Like all slightly demented and generally chaotic households, we have a veritable plague of fridge magnets of all shapes and sizes adorning the double-door of our beer-chilling and food fermenting Frigidaire,  so this is where we end up hanging all our important notices:- family memos, shopping lists, court orders, kid's coloured-in creations, appointment reminders, lists of duties, anonymous threats, signed threats, school reports, family photographs, recipes, pill reminders, diets, things to do lists, things NOT to do lists, library fines, traffic fines, restraining orders, arrest warrants, final demands and, of course, new year's resolutions. 
Indeed in our home, it seems the fridge door is our entire archive system for anything that is on paper.

And this is made worse because apparently, sometime, back in the long-forgotten medieval ages, an official decree from the King's pen was issued : “That noone should, henceforth, be permitted to removeth a single piece of parchment from under a fridge magnet(eth) lest he be puni-shed by painful death(eth).”

Honestly.  There's stuff up there that defies logic on both extremes.. 
“What's this?” I'll exclaim, rifling through the papers on a quest to find the freezer door handle.
“Oh it's a cute picture of a sunflower that David did when he was four,” chuckles Mrs Ed, “You see that brown smudge?  That was meant to be a caterpillar, but it looks a bit more like a hippo to me…. And the…...”

“Who is David?” I interrupt.  Logically I thought.

“Don't you remember?  He's the little boy who sat next to your son in class for a week in 1998.  I think he's studying medicine or something now, though I'm not sure, his family left in early1999.”

“And this underneath it…. It looks like a shopping list.  Why on earth are we keeping an old shopping list written on…. Hang on! This is our marriage certificate! WHO WROTE A SHOPPING LIST ON OUR MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE?”
“Oh at least it's had some sort of use,” she replies….

Yes. Our poor fridge door groans under the weight of paper and magnet, so much so that often I have to put dozens of full bottles inside to balance it out and prevent it toppling over when it's open.

On the plus side, it is actually quite handy to have the history of our new year resolutions on full display, because Mrs Ed and I get to use them in battle.

Really. There's no better ammunition than someone's resolutions when you are locked  head-to-head in verbal combat.
“Didn't you say you planned to be a better housekeeper this year, and make sure there's always something in the fridge?” I'll throw at her, staring at the empty shelves.
“Yes!  On the same day you vowed to drink less beer!” she hurls back, pointing at the stack of recently emptied empties.
“I wouldn't have to knock them back so quickly if you had stuck to your plan to learn how to cook properly in 2005!” I parry.
“ Well… (hang on I can't see, Love, can you move to the left a bit please? Thanks.) well I would have done so if you had kept your promise to make 2007 'The Year of the Productive Veggie Patch' wouldn't I?” …..and so it goes on.

 But I believe there are more negative than positive sides to a paper-coated fridge door.  For example, I live in fear of what criminal evidence might be discovered there at an in-opportune moment.

What if the CSI team were called in to investigate the mysterious appearance of a dead body on our kitchen floor (with Mrs Ed's cooking this is quite possible)? Who knows what they might find once they started sifting through the paperwork under our fridge magnets!
  And I'm not talking about the class photo of my son (The REE) age 5, (14 years prior to any tattoos and piercings, when he still wore his pants OVER his backside, and believed up to 60% of whatever his dad told him). I'm talking about real incriminating stuff.

“Hang on detective, I see they have the operating instructions for the Whizzofrothstick (makes a cappuccino a minute!) allegedly purchased, over-whizzed and chucked out - all on 15 August 2006. Could this be the murder weapon?”
“Bag it Danno, and check it for prints, along with this 12 year old invoice for dog shampoo I've managed to slide out from under magnet 17. It is crumbling already, but you may get some partials…”
“My goodness sir! Don't move another inch! Your tweezers almost tore that recipe for Liver and Brinjal Pie - I think we’ve found our motive!”

So yes.  My only other resolution for 2013 worthy of keeping is this.  I am going to buy a new fridge, and though I will probably have to hunt high and low, far and wide, there is going to be one unique quality this new fridge will have that will rid my home of all this collected chaos. 

My new fridge will sport a wooden door.
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