I wonder if Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had our kitchen refrigerator in mind when they got to thinking deeply about physics?
Don’t laugh. Our fridge would be a veritable treasure trove for scientists with inquiring minds.
Only the other night, when I raided the fridge for a midnight snack, I found a chicken that came pre-packed with four drumsticks rather than the customary two.
Seeing as I like snacking on drumsticks, I am not complaining.
But it does pose somewhat of a scientific mystery.
Was this the result of genetic engineering? A chicken with four legs?
If not, and we all accept Newton’s theory that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, was there a midnight snacker who opened his fridge at exactly the same time as me the other night, possibly even on the other side of the world, and found that his chook appeared to be an amputee?
My wife Katherine says all this is academic anyway.
She says that if I continue to raid the fridge at midnight, I am just going to get fat.
Maybe so. But I think she is in running the risk of stunting my burgeoning scientific mental growth.
The other day I received an email spruiking something called a water bra. Yep, a bra which has sealed liquid-filled pouches in each cup. The latest scientific discovery
If only, I thought, that same technology could be applied to men’s middle-age spreads, we would not need to raid our fridges to achieve the same effect.
Better still, if the scientists found a way to fill our pouches up with beer, give us a straw and build in a little TV set with a decent sports channel and ear pieces so we don’t disturb our wives too much, there would be no need to even leave our beds.
Nah, I thought, as I probed further into our fridge in search of other interesting tidbits to eat, it would never work. How would we keep the beer cold?
I have to tell you that our marital fridge bears little resemblance to the one I used to own as a bachelor.
In those days if there were two pieces of last night’s pizza and half a cartoon of last month’s milk in the fridge, I rated it as quite chocker-block.
Our marital fridge is usually wall-to-wall with meat, vegetables of uncertain identity (at least to me), leftovers, jars, bottles and containers.
The light in our fridge expired about a year ago.
If I ever actually see the rear wall, and discover where the light is supposed to go, I will do something about replacing it.
But I digress.
As I peered deeper and deeper into the fridge, I spied a yellow container entitled, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
Further examination revealed it was a cholesterol-free table spread, churned with buttermilk and containing vegetable oils, water, salt, emulsifiers, soya bean lecithin, natural food acid, Vitamins A and D, preservative, beta carotene, flavours.
Hmm, cholesterol free, eh?
That meant I could have more than my usual quarter-inch thick veneer of butter/margarine on my midnight toast.
It would be a superb accompaniment to my bonus drumsticks.
How do the scientists come up with this stuff anyway?
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! What a clever marketing ploy in these days of diet-conscious consumers.
I turned on the TV.
I turned on the heater.
I made some coffee.
I got out the chicken.
I got out the plate.
I made the toast.
I was all set.
Then I opened the container of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
Um, and it wasn’t butter either. Or table spread. Or margarine. Or anything like it.
Katherine was using the container to store cooked kidney beans.
I was soooooo disappointed.
Not as disappointed though, I suspect, as the bloke on the other side of the world who was really looking forward to kidney beans on his toast.
JOHN MARTIN 