Okay, I fell for the gag – the first time I heard it. I must have been a teenager.

I remember my conversation partner growing serious and very quiet for a few moments. He seemed intent on listening for a particular sound, coaxing me in into a state of silence as well — as if I was supposed to notice something.

After a time, he blurted out, “Is that your refrigerator running?…. You better go catch it.”

I was embarrassed that I was reeled in to a false state of alarm. He cracked up laughing. I’ll think about this joke as I’ll contemplate how I think about my refrigerator now.

For some reason, I use my refrigerator as a sort of barometer, as a reflection of my psyche.

I’ll look at the inside or outside of this often taken for granted appliance, and I’ll ask myself what’s it trying to tell me?

Last week, I noticed that my shelves were pretty empty. An immediate thought could have been that I needed to buy groceries. But I stared at the glass and plastic shelves for a while.

I saw purplish rings where a jar of preserves had been moved several times. The low inventory made it a perfect time to empty all the contents and give my fridge a good cleaning. It made me think of times when I wasn’t busy with work; how I could use quiet times for other types of projects.

Sometimes, I’ll notice periods when I open and close the door a lot. When I’m not even hungry. What is this about? I’ll ask myself. I decided that opening the door was like looking for distraction. If I thought about it, I was hungry for something, but it wasn’t necessarily food I was looking for.

Or, there are times when I’ll notice that I’m stocking a certain brand of beer when I don’t care that much about beer. I do this in case I might find myself entertaining and want to have something someone else would like. Seeing this, of course, makes me wonder why I don’t make special efforts to stock my refrigerator with things I like. Then I’ll ask myself what I can do to satisfy my own needs.

I remember a time when I was barely scraping together a living. The contents of my fridge pretty much consisted of a carton of eggs, ketchup, Tabasco sauce, a block of cheese and a liter of seltzer. When I visited my sister or friends, I saw that their refrigerators were full.

They had deli meats and fixings for salads. I could see a couple thick cut slices of yesterday’s meatloaf or some luxury items like shrimp or olives that didn’t come out of a can.

It made me ask myself why I wasn’t nurturing myself. It wasn’t just about staying within a budget for groceries. The contents of my refrigerator told me that I was not putting much attention into taking care of myself, into nutrition for my body or making things I liked accessible.

Certainly, people can ascribe meaning to things that don’t have any inherent significance. I know I don’t have to rely on my refrigerator to tell me something I might not be completely conscious about. From time to time, I can simply look at something around me, or at a current situation and ask myself What’s this about?  

What is it about my circumstances that is an out-picturing of something I’m holding inside?

I love that I can look at anything around me and contemplate that it can teach me something about myself.

I know there’s a saying, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” but understanding that a refrigerator can be more than a refrigerator is no small thing.