Friday, August 29, 2008

Best Supporting Actor in a Science Fiction/Horror Film

I love 1950's and 60's vintage horror movies. They're so awful. The special effects are decidedly unspecial, the dialog stilted and silly (especially when the English dialog is dubbed over the Japanese film), and the creatures are more goofy than frightening.

Today's horror films are generally much better, if only from the special effects perspective. Monsters look more monstery, if you get my drift. You don't see the zipper up Godzilla's back any more.


Last night, I missed a rare, golden opportunity to film and star in my own Sci-Fi/Horror movie.

Yes, we cleaned out the refrigerator.

This has been a project a long time in preparation, because government bureaucracies move with all the blazing speed of wet cement, and there are a lot of different offices that have a vote when you're dealing with hazardous materials. Many of them just shook their heads and wished us luck. Vladimir Putin sent an e-mail blaming the mess in the refrigerator on the US government, and we even got a video tape from Osama bin Laden asking if he could have anything useful to support his Infidel-No-More research program.

The project began easily enough; we opened the refrigerator door and I held a contractor-strength trash bag open in front and whistled, whereupon everything capable of moving under its own power rushed out into the bag. I quickly sealed the bag and rushed it out to the EPA-approved dumpster.

Next, Agnes and I donned our moon suits and respirators and began decanting accumulated greenish-brown liquids out of the vegetable drawers and into lead-lined canisters. We then used tongs to remove all the soggy lettuce carcasses, droopy cucumbers, and furry objects which may at one time have been fruits or vegetables.

We then moved on to the upper shelves, trying to identify things before we threw them out:

Agnes: is this a pork chop?

Bilbo: do pork chops usually wave at you?

Hairy cheeses, ossified soups, gray meats, we got rid of it all. There were, of course, some unusual questions we needed to answer:

Why do we have fourteen bottles of steak sauce?

Is it safe to keep heat-and-serve meals dating from the Truman administration?


How many kinds of mustard do we really need?

Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?

And how long have these Ding Dongs been in there, anyhow?


Once all the really dangerous things had been removed, we took out all the shelves and drawers, washed and disinfected them, wiped down all the jars and bottles we intended to keep, and replaced everything into the now-sparkling clean and non-odiferous refrigerator. The various inspectors examined our work, declared it good, and removed the biohazard signs from our front yard.

So if you want to come by for a snack, it's okay.

Really.

But I really wish we'd have filmed the job. I've always wanted my own Oscar.

Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday coming tomorrow.

Bilbo

8 comments:

The Mistress of the Dark said...

Good job! care to come and clean mine? My mother has a few science projects building :)

Amanda said...

HAHAHA! That was so funny. And its great that you can see the sense of humour in it all. When we were growing up, our fridge was a bit like that and my mother BECAME the monster when it was time to clean it out :)

These days, our fridge is usually empty by Friday and we have trouble finding stuff to cook from it.

Gilahi said...

And those Ding-Dongs? Don't worry about them. They're like Twinkies. Since they don't actually have any food products in them, they never go bad. After the nuclear holocaust occurs, there will be only be Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, and roaches left.

John A Hill said...

You should have called the nearest junior high science department to see if anybody needed a science fair project.

lacegem said...

You should have donated some of the spores to the Anthrax Lab @ Frederick, MD.

craziequeen said...

Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?
Ah, the eternal unanswered question...

This sounds like a classic horror in the making - when you do it again in ten years...make sure you video it!!

cq

Mike said...

HEY! You found my orange!

KKTSews said...

On to the freezer, where you get to become a detective, trying to discern what each mal-shapen, frost-encrusted object is.

You may recall that one of the few advantages of being active duty in the military is moving every 2-3 years. It means you clean out the refrigerator at least that often. :)