BY LORI CULWELL
So, I’m sure you remember how I’m afraid of food, since that’s the thing that people find absolutely HILARIOUS about me, as if they have no fears or compulsions of their own that they’re hiding, like they LOVE clowns, and can easily get into a packed elevator and not want to scream. Listen, I’m not Monk– I mean, I can kill a spider with my bare hands, then take the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and look over, but if I find spoiled leftovers in the fridge, I’m screaming and crying like a little girl, ok? Because I could have eaten that, and that would be….just unthinkable. I’m just saying, everyone has their thing, and rotten food is mine. It just grosses me out, and I own that.
Anyway, I was cleaning out the refrigerator last week (a task which I usually don’t do, because I will throw out absolutely EVERYTHING), and came across the bane of my very existence– a Tupperware container full of some grapes that had started to mold.
I will say that this time I managed to actually open up the Tupperware and throw the moldy grapes out into the trashcan, which I thought was a big step for me, because before I would have just thrown away the whole container, even if the moldy grapes were contained in a piece of expensive, one-of-a-kind heirloom china. In my mind, once something’s had mold in it, no matter how hot the water is when you wash it, the mold is still there. I think Stephan might have gotten tired of us never having anything to put leftovers in, though, because I started noticing them all rinsed out in the dishwasher before I could make the argument about how rotten food is virulent and will kill you.
This time, I actually went so far as to fill up the container with hot water and soap, though I could not bring myself to wash it out with a sponge because that would have been a little too close to me touching the mold. Also, while touching the moldy Tupperware, I will admit that I was holding my breath the whole time lest I accidentally inhale some of the spores, which would assuredly have given me tuberculosis. I did start to freak a little bit when a drop of water from INSIDE the moldy Tupperware got on my foot. Because you know why? I don’t like it when mold touches me, or when condensation that was once touching mold touches me. I must have screamed a little louder than I meant to, though, because Stephan came into the kitchen and said calmly: "You know, I hate to tell you this, but lots of things are MADE out of mold. You could even EAT mold, and you’d be fine. Penicillin is made from mold. BLUE CHEESE is mold. In fact, CHEESE is essentially mold. Things you like have mold in them!"
I think he was trying to be comforting, but the horrified look on my face may have let him know that this pep talk backfired, and that this had just made the crazy worse. I also wonder if he noticed that I never let out the breath I was holding until AFTER I backed out of the kitchen very slowly.
Mold can kill you, you know. Not many people know that.