The "Apple Juice Incident"

Do you ever have those days? The ones that start out so normal and then, in one moment, change into the kind of day that live on in family history? I had one last week, and it will always be called "The Apple Juice Incident."

The day started so calmly, that I was actually wondering what I wanted to try to accomplish as I started the morning. I was making breakfast for Addie and myself, when I pulled a pitcher of apple juice out of the fridge, and it slipped out of my hand. I watched in horror as it toppled over, pouring juice all over the bottom of the fridge, myself, and the floor. It poured into the vegetable drawer, over the plastic bags of produce, into the crevices of the fridge shelf above, into the bottom of the fridge under the veggie drawer, on the inside of the door, my pajama pants, my leather slippers, the outside of the fridge, the trash can, and most horridly- went UNDER the fridge. No man's land. I froze in disbelief, wondering if I closed my eyes if it would go away.

I started with the paper towels, then Scott started crying. While I was changing his diaper, Addie has a crying fit because she didn't have any juice. While I was disciplining Addie for that, Scott was SCREAMING, I still had on juice pants, and the thought of going back in the kitchen and tackling that huge mess made me consider just burning down the apartment instead. But I prayed aloud, Addie joining me, asking God for help to deal with it all. I put Scott down for a nap, helped Addie finish breakfast and watch some PBS (thank you God for PBS!), and realized I really should take some pictures of this.
Here is the mess after paper towels. You can still see some juice on the floor by the trash can. There was a lot of juice under the fridge, where you can't see it.
Here is my leg, pants rolled up. No use changing, because I was just going to get nastier, but I put on old plastic flip flops because I thought they'd be the easiest to clean afterwards.

I started with dis-assembling the inside of the fridge, taking out all the veggies and fruits, cleaning the drawers and shelves thoroughly. *sigh* That was just the beginning. I cleaned the door, moved the trash can out of the way, cleaned it outside, cleaned it inside, cleaned it's underside.

Then it was time to deal with the floor- the floor under the fridge.




With a great deal of determination, I pushed and shimmied the fridge out of the way. I will NOT show you what I saw at first underneath. So gross. But after a sweep and a little Swiffer mop, this is what it looked like.

Still nasty, but I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of what I found at first. A lot of cat hair. So much so, that I had to get out the vacuum and suck the cat hair off the back of the fridge.






This is what I found UNDER the fridge:
4 magnets, 3 marbles, a hair clip, a wooden block, and a golf ball.












Here's the fridge, in the middle of the entrance to the kitchen.

Behind the fridge you can almost see every counter covered in vegetables, paper towels, cleaner, and more. (Yes, one side of our fridge is covered in pictures- a lot of you are probably on there).









Watchout sticky mess! My powerful sinkfull of suds will dominate you! The floor was mopped and mopped, then it was all put back. Whew! What a huge job! In the end, I was glad to know that under and behind the fridge was clean. When else do you clean back there unless you move?

I was thankful that Addie and Scott rolled with the day, that Greg brought me lunch home, and that God graciously gave me strength for the day. And now, I know that it is clean under the fridge. Very clean.