Interactive Fridge Jar

“You’re outta milk bro,” the refrigerator said.

“For real?” I hadn’t had coffee yet; I could barely make out how much cereal I was pouring into my bowl.

“Nah.” The fridge laughed a big clunky laugh from the depth of it’s ice tray.

“I don’t know why you think that’s funny.” I said, opening his big dumb front door. “Quit pulling it shut!”

The fridge just laughed and laughed.

“Are you still drunk from last night?”

More laughing.

“Do you get off on this?” I asked. “I heard you making ice again at like, 3 am. You know I have finals today. It’s not just being inconsiderate, it’s like you’re trying to push me to my limit. Like you’re doing this on purpose.”

“Dude, I’m just messing with you. And you used all the fucking ice last night. You think I want to make ice at 3am?”

“I don’t think you had to make ice at 3am. No one uses ice as soon as they wake up. You could have started like, now. No one will need ice for hours.”

“This isn’t about the ice.” The Fridge said, his tone at last turning nasty. “You got somethin’, just tell me.”

“I JUST DID.” I knew I couldn’t get into all this until I had some coffee brewing, but the Fridge wouldn’t let me open the freezer to get the beans out.

“No, no more frozen goods until we talk about this.” The Fridge stood silently, waiting for me to talk.

“I just don’t think this is working.” I said, as plainly and unaffected as I could.

“Just because of the ice?”

I had to just walk out at that point. I couldn’t tell if it was being willfully obtuse, or if it truly didn’t see the way it was acting, if it understood how it was bullying me. I knew that this school was kind of a magnet for assholes and ‘bro’ types, but they also had the most well-funded marine biology lab in the state. God forbid I come here and try to actually use the facilities, rather than just fill my crisper drawer with Jack Daniels and panties stolen night after night from one night stands. I seriously couldn’t believe he held on to those, right where we kept the celery. Every salad I’d had this year had been flecked with glitter.

The fridge leaned into the leaving room, where I had relocated my breakfast.

“Dude, c’mon.” He said, at last humbling himself a little. “I’m sorry, I’m not tryin’ to — to be a dick or anything. That’s just what my sense of humor’s like. I only go rough on people that I like, ya know.”

“Well I don’t like it,” I said as assertively as I could, “And I think you know that, and I think you continue doing it regardless.”

“Alright alright,” it said, negotiating with some part of itself. “No jokes before coffee.” The fridge tilted forward and allowed a bag of frozen coffee beans to tumble out onto the floor. “Come back into the kitchen.”

I knew things had been hard on the fridge this year too. What I didn’t understand was the way it manifest itself in him — this spiteful, poisonous demeanor. When he had learned his dad died, only a couple weeks into college, that’s when I started finding the whiskey and panties in the crisper drawer. I hadn’t known him before college, so it was hard to tell if this was new or just par for the course. But I did know it was fake. Some mornings I would come in to find a puddle of water gathered around his base, and after he’d assured me he wasn’t leaking, well . . . I guess some people only allow themselves to feel those kind of things in private.

“You talk to your mom this week?” I asked, as we sat at the kitchen table drinking the coffee I’d finally been allowed to make.

“Yeah. She’s doin’ ok. Needs me to come help her move some of Dad’s stuff. So I gotta go down this weekend.”

“Sounds heavy.” I said.

The fridge tilted back and forth, in a motion I’d come to accept as nodding.

“Heavier than you could imagine.”