An elf-ective method of cleaning the faculty room fridge

Not surprisingly, my story begins with the typical "I was sitting in my classroom, minding my own business when..."

Felicia came storming in.

I sighed. Felicia and I have a troublesome history. We flaunted the law during Covid, exercising in her driveway ("Is THAT what you called what you were doing?" Felicia asked, puzzled), I was assigned a station for the bachelorette party she was hosting and ended up dressed like a bee, twerking on a dock at Silver Lake, and we became entangled in an out-of-control prank war that concluded with Felicia scaling a mini-mountain to retrieve a kidnapped boot tray.

Felicia has a short fuse when it comes to the faculty room fridge...I have somehow (See story starter:  "I was sitting in my classroom, minding my own business when...") been appointed the deputy to Felicia's Shelf-Life sheriffing. Last September, we had diligently monitored the evolution of a pink pudding-ed concoction as it morphed into a frighteningly congealed science experiment and then published our findings on Facebook where the embarrassed culprit eventually confessed via Messenger.

The alarming objects of Felicia's wrath this time were the half dozen or so bulging gallons of fermenting cider that took up a good one third of our precious refrigerated space. Real estate in the faculty room fridge is always in a state of disputed encroachment. Notes are posted. Angry words exchanged. Feuds fought. "We have to do something," Felicia fumed. I sighed. I had a million, much-more pressing things to do:  Report cards, holiday cards, lesson planning, correcting, Christmas program practice, bell choir practice, present wrapping...so naturally, I ignored ALL of that and instead threw myself into vengeful refrigerator retaliation. "We'll need one of those awful Elf-on-the-Shelf things," I told her. Felicia nodded. Of course. "We'll need elf shoes and hats." Felicia whipped out a pen and pad to jot down the list as I walked off muttering, "If only we had a stein..."

At the end of the day, materials compiled and a stein mysteriously present, we donned our costumes to combat the calloused clutter of our faculty room refrigerator. "You know, you COULD just clean it out," our more reasonable friend, Katriel, suggested, nonetheless, pulling out a chair for front row seating to an impromptu free show. Kelly, a known faculty room felon who has committed outlandish offenses involving EVERY appliance in there, volunteered to be our photographer as part of her community service hours. Creating a caustic compilation of perturbed pictures is not as easy as one might imagine. There was a LOT of unnecessary giggling. Felicia was incapable of not being impossibly gorgeous in every shot. Kelly neglected to listen to directions (which is what got her into trouble with each of her appliance altercations) so no one could see our Elf-on-the-Shelf poised perfectly IN the fridge. "It's ruined!" I declared, staring sadly at the finished product. "I think it looks great," Felicia said, delighted. Yeah, sure. She looks like a flipping' model while I am a loopy, cross-eyed, slumped-over, chubby elf-phant. "Stop it," Felicia frowned, "We really need to work on your elf-esteem."

Still dressed in costume, we then cleaned out the refrigerator, discovering a gallon of milk, a month over-due. We daintily delivered our dairy to the trash before it could detonate. We called it quits after straightening the thousand bottles of salad dressing in the door. "The only thing green in this fridge is the mold," I commented, "Who do they think they're kidding?" I closed the refrigerator door before I lost my cool. It was time to get the elf out of there.