The Biohazard Report

Our fridge

Our fridge's current biohazard rating: 6.

10 is where someone opens the fridge and a small phone on Bill Clinton's desk rings

-- Martin

Something's died

-- Belinda

It's evil. I don't know what it is, but it sure is evil.

History

• The first discovery was some takeaway containers in the fridge which contained unidentifiable stuff that was positively evil. It had mould of different colours growing on it which defies description. Back in these days the B.R. was up around 8.
• 15-Jul-1999: Discovered an abandoned packet of biscuits in the cupboard under the sink. Noboby claimed them and they hadn't gone soggy, so they're mine now.
• 16-Jul-1999: I found a carton of cream which had a use-by date of the third. Luckily it hadn't been opened, or it would have been pretty ripe.
• 17-Jul-1999: Today I threw out the rotten orange, which someone else had named Ralph. RIP.
• 17-Jul-1999: My three housemates and I had a freezer cleanout today. We got rid of a mountain of ice and several ex-food items which previous housemates had left in there. I ate the frozen pizza which nobody owned up to.
• 18-Jul-1999: I discovered that the cheese I'd last used about 3 weeks before had gone a bit dry and mouldy. I cut off the offending bits and the rest tasted fine.
• Cherry has learnt that if you leave a McDonalds thick-shake sitting around in your room for long enough, it will develop a "clear film" on the top.
• Damn bananas... stupid things keep going off on me.
• The fridge doesn't stink as much since Cherry cleaned up the blood under the vege drawer which had leaked from her cats' food.
• 04-Aug-1999: That sausage had been hanging around in the fridge for almost a week. I decided to play "culinary roulette" by eating it. (Well, not quite. That would involve eating one of six sausages, one of which is known to be off.)
• Things were pretty quiet (so to speak) in the stench department, but now they're "warming up".
• 05-Aug-1999: The infamous tomato incident.
  
• 07-Aug-1999: Let's see... I bought the salmon pâté almost two weeks ago, used some of it in a sandwich and then used it as dip at a party one or two days later. That was the Friday before last. No wonder it had mould growing on it.
• It took me four days to finish the pizza from that party, which probably didn't (or should that be "did") help the BR.
• 10-Aug-1999: My guess is that the bread on top of the fridge appeared around this time. Nobody is sure, and nobody is game enough to ask the bread.
• 12-Aug-1999: If corn looks bad, then it is. Trust me.
• People have a habit of buying food in this place, then forgetting about it. Like the bag of rolls which lurked on top of the fridge for about 2 weeks until I threw them (and the mould) out.
• 03-Sep-1999: I finally threw out the capsicum (green pepper) and the box of instant noodles it was on top of. The capsicum was starting to look like Jabba the Hutt^TM and it had oozed. (Just like those crappy Star Wars toys you can get.)
• 03-Sep-1999: M² found some bowls of chopped cheese & vegies that Cherry left on his shelf in the fridge weeks ago. NO, we didn't try to make something with them.
• 03-Sep-1999: Rockmelons (cantaloupes) take a long time to go bad. I didn't give this one the chance.
• 03-Sep-1999: Time to ditch the polony I think. How many weeks ago was the Use By date?
• 11-Sep-1999: I found a jug and and a bowl of potato soup in the fridge. The soup was impressive, but the thing in the jug was art. I couldn't even figure out what it was supposed to be, but there was at least six kinds of mould in there.
• 18-Sep-1999: M² found some more takeaway Chinese that he had forgotten about. It *looked* ok, but that's not neccessarily a good indicator.
• 28-Sep-1999: I don't make lunch and take it to work as often as I'd like. I guess this is why I have to keep throwing out things like the rest of the sliced roast pork.
• 29-Sep-1999: Where did that messy looking puddle at the bottom of the fridge come from?
• 17-Oct-1999: Threw out another stale roll.
• 28-Oct-1999: I decided to clean out the bottom shelf of the pantry today. This was prompted by the potatoes which were looking like they were about to take over. Some of them had tendrils over 40cm long growing out of them...
• 30-Oct-1999: My housemate kindly informed me that the milk had seemed dodgy when he bought it. It did smell a bit funny, so I threw it out. Surprisingly, it didn't taste bad when I had some on my cereal yesterday morning...
• 1-Nov-1999: I still haven't chucked out the choc milk. I don't want to know what it'll be like a month after it's a month past its use-by date. That was the 10th.
• I chucked out the choc milk. I don't quite know why.
• We've got to start throwing out the kitchen rubbish more often. Can you say "maggot motel"?
• 22-Nov-1999: Steven went insane yesterday and cleaned out the fridge. M²'s comment was: "Oh my god! Somebody broke in and committed a cleanliness!" We lost a lot of old friends that day... the fridge looks kind of barren now.
• 28-Dec-1999: There was this 3-litre bottle of milk, see, and as near as I can work out, it originally got left out of the fridge because it was off and bulging. It was still on the kitchen floor when I got back from a week away!
• 3-Jan-2000: The lettuce looked too mushy to even consider taking it out of the bag. I forgot when I defrosted the ham. I took one look at the mould on the bread and gave up. End result: a fairly bare fridge.
• 10-Jan-2000: Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the pantry... I have discovered that it is a Bad Idea^TM to keep (or should that be "leave") potatoes in a plastic bag. Instead of sprouting like the last lot, they went mushy, grew chunky mould, developed black bits and oozed dark brown slime through the bag & all over the shelf.
• 10-Jan-2000: There is a cooked sausage on a plate on the top of the microwave oven. I thought about throwing it it out, but then I got a hold of myself: you know how manufactured meat gets when it's cornered.
• 10-Jan-2000: I guess I was lucky that I checked the biscuit before I ate it; suffice to say that I plan to maintain a better seal on the next packet.
• 26-Jan-2000: It's fun being able to take a Tupperware container (which was in the fridge, sealed) containing ex-food, show it to a group of six people and have only one of them be able to identify what it was. And he's my housemate, therefore having a rough idea of what I eat... (For the record, it was Braised Steak and Vegetables [translation: dog food for people], but it ended up looking more like cotton wool.)
• 2-Feb-2000: There was this banana on top of the fridge, you see. One day I took it onto the front porch where a bunch of people were standing and held it up for them to see. Then I realised: "hey, this banana smells like booze! I think it's fermented!" I then put it back on the fridge ready for the next party.
• 10-Feb-2000: A bit of mould on cheese is fine, but when the whole thing ends up looking like camembert then it's time to say goodbye.
• 20-Feb-2000: I learnt from the last jar that jam is not mould-resistant. What surprised me was that this jar still developed a colony whilst in the fridge. (Photos ahoy!)
• 23-Feb-2000: More spuds. They're a tuber; you'd think they would remain sane in a cool, dark pantry.
• 15-Mar-2000: Lettuce, ham, cheese. What sane person has time to make their lunch before work?
• 6-Apr-2000: Isn't it funny how milk doesn't smell much different when it first goes off, but when you try to pour it onto your cereal it's more like cheese with salad dressing?
• 6-Apr-2000: My (drunken) housemates decided to finish off the carton of goon that's been hanging around in the fridge since before I moved in. Which was almost a year ago.
• 18-May-2000: Damn bugs. They got into the biscuits AND the Weetbix this time.
• 22-May-2000: I decided that the the two tomatoes in the bag were too dodgy to bother with, so I heaved them.
• 27-May-2000: A big day.
  • Mum gets into my car, smells something strange (I wondered what that was) and opens the glovebox. Inside there was a banana, in a shopping bag, which had been there for several weeks. It had leaked.
  • I decided that, even though you're supposed to leave cooked rice in the fridge for a while (to dry out) before you make Fried Rice with it, over a week was pushing it.
  • I know for a fact that the pot of sour cream has been in the fridge since the 7th of April. It still didn't smell any different.
• 1-Jun-2000: The Great Cheese Project status report: my nutty housemate has taken pictures of the cheese, some of which will appear here shortly.
• 9-Jun-2000: I have discovered that stale & mouldy rye bread bounces well.
• 10-Jun-2000: It's funny how onions go sort of flexible when they go off. It's always just one though.
  GCP update: some of the mould is red.
• 11-Jun-2000: The rye bread doesn't bounce too good any more. So I threw it out!
• 7-Jul-2000: I didn't know anything could grow on salami. But it can!
• 15-Jul-2000: It's got to the stage where some food ends up smelling like the fridge after only being in there for few days.
• 17-Jul-2000: My housemate cleaned out his shelf in the fridge today. The casualties included two-week old bacon, a dogdy half-frozen carrot and fruit that had a vintage of about a month or so ago.
• 5-Aug-2000: "How did fruit juice go off in your fridge?" Let's just say that the normal laws of preservatives do not seem to apply to our fridge.
• 17-Aug-2000: Armageddon. The fridge was so badly iced up that there was no alternative. It simply had to be cleaned, and due to the standing apathy wave in our household, I was the one to do it. So, armed with a flour scoop, a metal spatula, a hot water bottle, Pine-o-cleen and plenty of elbow grease I set to the task. After a titanic struggle, the fridge was clean but the "quest for 0" had failed. Oh, well. Maybe in another 18 months.
• 8-Sep-2000: Now we know all about the auto-liquification properties of tomatoes, thanks to my housemate. Lucky the bag didn't burst, that's all I can say.
• 11-Sep-2000: Wow. Turns out there is such a thing as a banana which is too far gone.
• 16-Sep-2000: Started an eat-athon today, as I'm going away for 2 weeks and I'm too cheap to let my housemates eat all the food. Bacon and eggs for lunch...
• 16-Sep-2000: Discovered a new friend today. I can't believe that I forgot about yoghurt, but I did. Unfortunately, the fungus found it first. It was also curdled, and smelt less than it does when it's fresh, which is strange. But I suppose it starts off cultured anyway, now it's just more so. I put it out the back with Ralph; hopefully they'll become friends.
• 5-Oct-2000: I got back from Sydney yesterday, and today my housemates showed me some of the "new developments". Included were a carrot that looks more like a mummified penis and a tub of sour cream which actually went orange. Yes, bright orange.
• 7-Oct-2000: The fridge cleanup-and-sort-out were completed today, with noted casualties being a bag of tomatoes, half a jar of jam with no lid, and an almost-liquid capsicum. I also discovered that unlike other vegies which tend to wilt, shrink or go floppy, broccoli doesn't change much even after a couple of weeks.
• 3-Nov-2000: The mythical, rarely-explored top shelf of the fridge got cleaned out today! Something like four or five half-empty jars of dip/salsa got turfed out, along with a rather sorry-looking minijar of jam. A kind of experiment reached its conclusion when the full tin of mussels was chucked: it had been in there more than a week and still didn't smell or look much different to when it was opened. Another victim was a half-can of tinned fruit salad (which was completely unrecognisable, for the record).
• 9-Nov-2000: Potatoes don't like plastic bags I guess. Not only did they have black mould *and* white mould on them, they had leaked juice. That's right, kiddies: potato juice.
• 13-Dec-2000: We discovered what was contributing to the noxious stench in the fridge. Rotten watermelon; 90% water, 10% bacteria heaven.
• 14-Dec-2000: Brown liquid, aka celery sticks. Considered dangerous.
• 14-Dec-2000: Some rice was discovered today which, according to the relevant housemate, looked like a "fuzzy green meteorite". It smelt like saké and emitted a green gas when the container was rinsed.
• 14-Dec-2000: The above housemate tried to throw out two peaches which I had forgetten about, but I intercepted one and ate it. I'm not fussy.
• 30-Dec-2000: Ladies and gentlemen, the impossible has occurred. Coke has gone off in our fridge.

Food info

Kindred Souls

There are others, out there, like me. This is strange but true. Here are some of their exploits.

• Stinkymeat

The Amateur Mycology Association

• The standard blue/grey/green "spreading" mould. A thick coating of this forms Ralph's skin.
• Small brown spotty mould. Graduated around the edges.
• "Powdery", patchy pinkish-red mould with white spots in it.
• Dark green splotchy mould
• White, fuzzy mould like fine cotton wool. Ralph now has a beard.
• Black spot

• A strange, volcanic-tube-style mould growing up from around some peas.
• Weird yellow mould which likes to colonise multigrain bread.
• Grey mould which grows upon mushy, fridge-bound stuff.