I was scrolling through my Pocket feed recently (as opposed to my pockets, where there’s just keys and lint), and stumbled upon an article about a hot new trend called “fridgescaping.” In case you’re living under a rock, as I apparently was, this involves decorating the inside of your refrigerator like you would any other space in your house, adding things that don’t normally belong there. Like fresh flowers and framed photographs and ceramic figurines — trinkets you might expect to find in a China hutch, not a place where leftovers go to die. Some people even create entire themed fridgescape displays.
There have been some pretty stupid fads over the years — sideburns, fidget spinners, parachute pants, water beds, and planking, for instance— but this one takes the cake.
A refrigerator serves one purpose: to keep food fresh and safe to eat. It’s a kitchen appliance, not a freakin’ art museum! What’s next? Will I have to pay admission every time I reach for a bottle of ketchup or hire an interior decorator to properly arrange my pickle jars and cheese slices and romaine lettuce? Will I start getting funny looks from houseguests because my yogurt containers aren’t artfully stacked, or my celery isn’t displayed in a fancy porcelain vase? God forbid my fridge feng shui is askew.
Look, I’m okay with slapping a few magnets on the refrigerator door, maybe a Chinese takeout menu and a $5 Ace Hardware coupon that will expire long before it ever gets used, and of course a running grocery list. If my adult children want to send me crayon drawings, fine: I will happily display those, too. But that’s as far as I’m going! The only Pollock you’ll see inside my fridge is fish, not Jackson.
Naturally, we can blame the fridgescaping trend on TikTok. I’d expect nothing less from the social media platform that also introduced us to NyQuil chicken, the Milk Crate Challenge, and the Gorilla Glue Girl. (Actually, we can blame a blogger — whoopsie! — who wrote about fridgescaping in 2011. But TikTok made it go viral.)
Honestly, if any space in the house deserves a decorative makeover, it’s the junk drawer. Other than three-year-old packets of soy sauce and a stale starlight peppermint that my grandmother probably dug out of her purse in 1982, there aren’t any food items in there. Aspiring artists who want to gussy up my collection of chip clips and matchbooks and chopsticks and ticket stubs from Batman Forever can have at it as far as I’m concerned!
Tara rolled into the driveway of MarTar Manor shortly after 6 p.m. on Sunday, hours earlier than I’d been expecting her. Probably because she hit the road at the ungodly early hour of 3 a.m.
“Were you that eager to escape Rapid City?” I asked her.
Well, no. She found herself tossing and turning in the uncomfortable motel room bed and decided her time would be better spent driving home.
But also, yes.
“I hate to say it, but Rapid City has lost its charm,” she told me.
Words that kinda broke my heart. I can’t help but recall how excited we were to leave the PNW behind and move there in the summer of 2018. South Dakota represented a homecoming for me, three decades after I’d left, and a fresh new start for Team MarTar. We were quite enamored with the place for a while.
And then, I guess we weren’t; otherwise we wouldn’t have quit our jobs, sold our house, and moved to Wisconsin four years later. And while neither of us had a single regret, Tara occasionally wondered whether we’d done the smart right thing. (Big difference between smart and right. Leaving was a hastily planned and, let’s face it, unnecessary gamble. But fortunately, one that paid off in spades, so at least we didn’t end up looking like total idiots.)
Doubt, though. It creeps in sometimes, you know? For me, it never completely went away until I landed the CheeseGov gig. It took a little longer for Tara, i.e., last week. Driving around Rapid, she barely recognized the place — and we’ve only been gone two years. The population is exploding and there is construction everywhere. The prairie is being gobbled up in greedy bites, the tall grass that once flourished on the hillsides now buried beneath asphalt, apartment complexes and houses rising in its place. A quaint parking lot in the heart of downtown has been replaced by a six-story high-rise. Traffic, never an issue before, suddenly is. Even the traditional post-Labor Day lull marking the end of tourist season has evaporated, giving way to a shoulder season that now extends through October. Tara said it just felt so much busier than she remembered.
They say you can’t go home again. Guess they were right. Tara couldn’t wait to come home…to her real home here.
She’s thankful for the trip, though. Not only was it a real eye-opener; she was also able to fill a cooler full of South Dakota treats. I had to clear out the freezer to fit all the kuchen and bierock she brought back, not to mention the Dark Canyon coffee and Prairie Berry wine and Black Hills Bagels. (And no, I’m not freezerscaping, either.)
Proof that even if you’re glad you left a place, you’re still going to miss a few things about it.
Fridgescaping: yay or nay? What’s in your junk drawer? If you’ve moved away from a place you once lived, what items would fill your cooler during your next visit?
Mark My Words 
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