When will I ever learn?

I've been married for 18 years this July, and therefore responsible for all the stuff my husband and/or family feel no need to take care of - which is everything in the house. One of these things is the refrigerator. I organize it, keep inventory of it, fill it, cook from it and pretty much every break from school, I clean it out. I clean it during Christmas, again during Spring Break and usually twice during summer break. Sometimes, I'll clean it during a surprise snow day - but I usually use those days to get caught up on laundry or grading. (I know, you all want my life)

It doesn't matter when I clean it or how close the clean out date is to the last clean out date, there will be something that is so unbelievably filled with mold that I can't understand how it is still in the refrigerator.

Here are my issues: I can't throw food away if I think there might be a use for it before it goes bad and I can't throw away containers with food if the container can be recycled. I will stand at my sink with the garbage disposal running and push the most vile and disgusting mold down the disposal just so that I don't have to throw the 18 month cottage cheese container away. Today, I almost took a picture of the mold from today's yogurt container. It was insane. It was five different colors, resembled a flower and there was nothing but mold for two and a half inches in the container and then regular smelling, regular looking yogurt underneath. It was really disgusting yet amazing at the same time.

Every time I clean out the refrigerator (and yes, I know I said I was going to work on it last week, but couldn't bring myself to face the crap I knew was growing in the refrigerator until today), I tell myself to come up with a rule for leftover containers. Nothing gets to stay longer than a week - if it still hasn't been used after a week - let it go. Say goodbye...you're not going to make the lemon yogurt cake again, so get rid of the extra yogurt from that recipe. The "Make Your Own Pizza" party is over and the little cubes of parmesean pesto ham that was expensive but isn't going to be used for an ommlette someday should be thrown away.

The sad thing is, I've made this rule each time I've cleaned out the refrigerator, three times a year for 18 years...and I've broken it each time. That's 54 broken promises if you do the math...what the heck is wrong with me?

Maybe the fact that today's refrigerator cleaning out experience actually made me vomit into my own sink will mean I can follow the one week leftover container rule.

Yeah...maybe I don't ever want to do that again...

yeah...