the fridge thief

Like many households we have hung on to the old fridge from before our fitted kitchen, fridge-freezer days.  Sometimes I wonder how much it costs us to run, and worry about the environmental extravagance of having two fridges.  But the fact that we waste very little food and have not so far given ourselves food poisoning is not unconnected with the quantity of fridge space.  And it is useful for chilling drinks and having somewhere to store salad and puddings when we have guests.  Many people keep their overflow fridge in their garage.  Ours lives in a useful, fridge sized space in a cupboard in the downstairs sitting room, complete with electrical socket, dating from when the house was first built and that room was in fact the kitchen.

This morning as I came downstairs I saw the door to the cupboard was open.  That was not unusual, neither of us being tidy people, but what was unusual was that the fridge door was open as well.  I went to shut it, hoping that the leftover Christmas ham had not got too warm, and wondering how on earth the fridge had come to be open.  Presumably the roasting trays balanced on top of the bag of King Edwards had slid forward and stopped it from latching fully.

When I looked in the fridge I saw that the tinfoil had gone from over the breast of the small free range Duchy Organic chicken.  Ah.  Cats.  Your reaction to discovering that your cats have been eating the remains of your Christmas roast is a test of your devotion as a pet owner.  If your immediate thought is that they have only had the breast and not the legs and so have almost certainly not swallowed any sharp bones that could hurt them that marks you down as a hopelessly devoted owner.  I am quite hopelessly devoted, though I was also relieved that on the balance of probabilities I was not going to spend the rest of the Christmas holiday trying to track down an emergency vet.

I shoved the tray of chicken back in the fridge and shut the door, thinking I would sort it out later and telling myself that ham was a preserved meat and the downstairs sitting room must have been pretty cold anyway overnight so it would be fine.  I did feel a pang that there would be no cold chicken breast with cranberry jelly, and wondered if it would be worth salvaging the meat off the legs for a pie, or if neither of us would really fancy it knowing that the cats had been at it.

Much later in the day the Systems Administrator noticed Mr Fluffy sitting near the fridge, looking guilty.  The SA went to investigate whatever it was that Mr Fluffy was guilty about, and found Our Ginger with his paw hooked around the edge of the fridge door, yanking at it.  Intent on his mission, Our Ginger did not pay a great deal of attention to the SA, and presently managed to jerk the door of the fridge open.  So much for theories about sliding roasting tins.  The cat can open the fridge, if he thinks it's worth his while.

The cupboard door is now firmly shut.