true story

Once upon a time I had an indescribable, larger-than-life, oh-my-word oh-my-word I need need NEED hunger for (drum roll please)

fish sticks.

I know. I know. And this was (embarrassingly) before I was even pregnant. Chip was traveling a lot for work, people, and I found myself wandering the grocery store aimlessly after work. I had been left to my own devices and so yes, dude, I BOUGHT A BOX OF FISH STICKS.

As soon as I came home they were put in the freezer and never thought of again. Well, never thought of again until, say, Chip opened the freezer and saw the box and started in on the INVADER INSIDE OUR FREEZER WHAT THE HECK CAME OVER YOU TO BUY FISH STICKS CRAZY LADY???? I might have mentioned, in my defense at the time, that I couldn't eat them because we didn't have any tartar sauce. So what did Chip do? He bought the darn tartar sauce, of course (proof that my husband is both crazy with the logic as well as a perfect angel).

He bought tartar sauce. Tartar sauce that is still sitting (unopened) in our refrigerator door.

Two years later...
At some point during her visit, either The Wife opened our freezer and spied the fish sticks, or Chip helpfully mentioned the fish sticks. Either way, it led to this whole conversation about them, and made me think of the Universal Law that I'm calling The Principle of the Fish Sticks. It goes like this: When one spouse purchases something (fish sticks or dare I mention GOJI BERRY JUICE, CHIP???) - something that is never going to be consumed, even when the purchasing spouse assures the non-purchasing spouse that, indeed, it's totally going to be consumed at some date in the future - when this happens, the non-purchasing spouse absolutely will NOT throw the offending item away, no matter now long it resides in the refrigerator. The purchasing spouse, of course, cannot throw the item away, for that act would signify both DEFEAT as well as WASTEFULNESS. (And isn't it just better to just house the item indefinitely? Yes. Yes, I think it is.)

The bottom line for me is that the fish sticks are really more like members of the family. We've adopted them. You can't EAT members of your family. And you certainly don't throw them AWAY - even when they are taking up space in the freezer.

Now tell me, we can't be the only ones who do this. Do you guys have any 2-year-old fish sticks living in your freezer? (Or, I don't know, have ancient Goji berry juice that was the lynch pin in a new and improved health regimen for someone in the Whimsy household and yet there it still sits in the back of the fridge?)