Have you ever seen one of those refrigerators plastered in magnets? I have. I had a grandmother who had a "magnet" collection on her refrigerator, the entire refrigerator was covered. The magnets were of roosters, places she's been, Disney characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, plastic fruit ones, alphabet letters and even magnets that could hold photos. When I was a kid, I would go and rearrange all those magnets. She didn't like that always but sometimes when she was in a good mood, she would let me "re-arrange" the fridge magnets.
I've seen other refrigerators that were much different. Some were covered in papers, mostly events and things that were happening while others served as their children's art gallery. The drawings plastering the whole fridge were of young hands making turkeys and crayon stick figures of Mom and Dad. One friend's refrigerator years ago was plastered in cut out comic-strips, they liked Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, oddly they had plastered the downstairs bathroom with comics too, taped to the wall almost like an extension of the fridge. Still another friend, had a giant wall calendar stuck to the front of the fridge they were an organized person. She also kept an organized list of what foods she had run out of. I've also known people with blank refrigerators, with nothing on them.
Years ago I read a book called Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About Your Life by Sam Gosling a psychologist from the University of Texas. This book was very interesting to me. He wrote that that people who were more open, had more books, CDs and DVDS and more eclectic collections then less open people. Artists were more adventurous by far in their surroundings and were taste definers while others stayed with the mainstream.
Years ago I got in a discussion with a friend, and said, you know you can tell a lot about a person from what their house or apartments looks like, do they have books, is it messy, is it clean? Is the place decorated or do you have white walls staring you down with nothing to look at? Just like one can read handwriting, where bubbly letters point to extroversion and slanted left writing can speak of anger, one can read surroundings to figure people out. One can read everything from social class to hobbies to personality. The same also goes for the refrigerator, it is a micro-cosm of looking at the entire home.
A short-hand way to get a quick look at what someone is all about. It's interesting to see everyone's refrigerator door, you can learn a lot about a person about what's on their fridge, are they a sports nut? Do they keep shopping lists? Do they have a busy schedule or a more laid back one? Are they politically active? Refrigerators are to adults like folders are to kids in school. We drew all over our folders and put stickers on them. It was a personal statement.
The refrigerator being where the food and cold drinks are held, is the center of many homes. It is the first stage bulletin board. Before smart phones, it sometimes served as a message center for various families and a place to leave notes. Years ago I even had a marker board attached to the fridge, but it wore out and broke. I wouldn't mind another. I could write myself reminders on there. I'm a list maker and lists often cover my refrigerator. "Get the car oiled changed" is on a list I left on there.
Here is a poster I made, all this stuff has hung on my fridge at one time and most of it I took it off the other day. Included are a cartoon I drew--I kept journals for years in comic form and this is my character sitting on the beach and here's another one I drew. I have a lot of medical junk on my fridge, I threw up acouple of those on here, but the phone numbers and other things I have to remember is a lot. There's a few magnets, political and otherwise. This brochure is of a new store they opened, they were suppose to sell antiques, I haven't gotten over there yet. This one is of a local comic con, I went to. So my refrigerator shows a lot of my interests. Sometimes we clear off our fridge completely. I wonder what that represents where I just decide to wipe it clean, but then I am usually shoving all the needed pictures, information and paper left overs into folders, or other boxes. Maybe that's a period of transition, wipe the refrigerator clean and then start over.
Did you know there's a website called Check Their Fridge? Look up checktheirfridge.com Pictures of people's refrigerators are shown and analyzed to see if they would make good dates. Is the new wannabe boyfriend a nice guy? They look inside the fridges at what food they have and how messy they are. Sometimes they do look at the pictures and magnets on the fridge. It's interesting to see what they say about people's refrigerators both inside and out. I find myself thinking some of their predictions are accurate.
[this was done as a reading at my local UU church, it did make me think a lot about what I saw on the front of my own refrigerator and that of others]
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