Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The case of the monster-fridge

So I went through a pretty nasty case of food poisoning about a week ago. I got food poisoning about two weeks after moving to Chile as well - so it seems to be a pattern. Maybe that's how long it takes my body to realize the food is different and react negatively, or maybe it's just an odd coincidence. This time I figured out that the culprit was the pork made for a BBQ for B's birthday. Now, pork is a dangerous meat since, as many people say, pigs are dirty animals. I, however, do not blame the pig. I blame the refrigerator.

My suegro (father-in-law) had the interesting idea of buying a cheaper fridge to save some money. OK OK, not a bad idea. The problem is that this cheaper fridge is not your normal kitchen fridge. It's one of those soda display fridges that people put in their mini-marts, which also tend to consume a ridiculous amount of energy. Buy cheaper fridge, spend super duper amounts on the electric bill.... hmmmm. Ever the money-saver, el suegro decides to periodically unplug the fridge throughout the day. Lovely! Keep the fridge monster from eating all the electricity while making the temperature in the fridge fluctuate throughout the day. Food gone bad is a waste of money. Even worse, food that causes sickness could end in a hospital visit which is a LOT of money.

Now let's all ponder what might be one of the worst things to leave in the fluctuating-temperature-monster-fridge.... hmmm... let's see... need another minute? ..... ok ok, I'll tell you: RAW MEAT. Guess how long this raw meat was marinating before we cooked it! -- Roughly a day and a half. UFF.

And TA-DA! Miss Kelly has food poisoning like nobody's business (followed by B and el suegro not feeling so hot either...). I won't go into the nasty details of my suffering... but just know that it was exceptionally awful. I will offer one bit of advice though. If you ever have food poisoning, please know that dehydration usually comes along with that - so drink tons and tons of water. If you don't, you will experience the worst stabbing pain in your side (which after everything you went through with the food poisoning just feels like karma is being unnecessarily mean).

And about a week after this whole incident, I'm feeling much better............ and the monster-refrigerator has been happily devouring electricity without any breaks for the past few days. :o)

2 comments:

  1. When I was on Utila (Honduras) for a couple of weeks in the early 90s, people took it for given that the electricity was out for parts of the day, and that the food in the fridge didn't stay quite so cold. I don't eat meat, so I never had the pleasure of getting sick like that, but I'm sure it wasn't something you'd like to repeat any time soon. Glad you're feeling better!

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  2. yeah, I'm considering becoming temporarily vegetarian. Especially with all the pig slaughtering going on near where I live. ick.

    Would probably be better for my health anyway.

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