Trina Machacek: Getting to the top

I am not too tall or too short. Like most people, I don’t like to have to go mountain climbing to get something off the top shelf or go tunneling into the mine shafts of the bottom shelves at any store. In my kitchen, there are things up on the high shelves of cupboards that have been there for more years than I have fingers and toes, and chances are they might be there until the next owner of this house has to climb up and ferret out whatever is up there and bring it back out into the light. I couldn’t, wouldn’t do that to a new homeowner. Besides, there may be gold in them “thar” cabinets.

I’m trying to become one of those superbly organized chosen few who believe that if you haven’t seen it for more than a year, you need to let it go. Of course, I might put the time limit out to about 10 years or so. Yes, if I haven’t seen or used it for 10, OK, maybe 12 years, out it goes. But. Yes, a climbing but. First, I need to mine the gold from the kitchen cabinet above the fridge and for that I need my handy-dandy wooden stool. I keep a few climbing apparatuses in an around my home. I have degrees of stools. My dining room table is one of the high ones with high chairs. Well, that makes me and mine sound like a bunch of babies sitting around strapped to metal chairs with bibs and trays full of fruit loops. Ha, ha. There have been a few food fights in my past where strapping people to chairs might have been a good idea. But I have slipped on mashed potatoes and gone off the trail…

I keep a little stool near those high chairs for my few vertically challenged friends. Makes it easier to get in and stay up in the chair. Other stools around this abode will aid in me getting up to the back of the closets and to the deep darkness of the kitchen cabinets. Now I’m kinda getting into the treasure hunt. I really don’t have any idea what is up there. I can’t remember the last time I was in that cabinet. Changed the refrigerator out at least two times in the past years, but I don’t think I gave a second thought to opening the cabinet above. More concerned with cleaning the floor under the old fridge. Pretty disgusting under there, I must say. Yeah, you know of what I speak. I can see you smiling — or is that a grimace! When the guys come in and take the old one out, you can’t clean fast enough as to not let anyone see the Cheerios, dead flies and maybe a moth or two, dust and dirt and just a happy mix of muck. Yes, we have all been there.

Well, today it is the top of the chillin’ machine that needs attention before the cabinet is traversed. Some time ago we had a smaller version of our refrigerator. It was pointed out that taller people than I could see the top and so I kept it clean — well, cleaner than this taller version. Hey, I don’t know people who can see the top of the new huge refrigerators like I now have, so the top has been, well, been missed during cleaning. Yes, I am going with that. I just missed that spot.

Tops of refrigerators need to be more than just dusted. Nope, there is a stickiness that requires a grease-cutting spray and a few sessions of rinsing the rag. That, of course, is after you take the little knick-knacks off the top and clean them, too. Since I’m there, I might as well take a closer look at all the doo-dads attached to the front and sides. Within my organization mood I should pick and choose, keep and throw some of the potpourri there, too. As I am cleaning like the eighth thing, it came to me that if I just pitched this stuff, I wouldn’t have to clean them. So out went about half of the “treasures.” Man, there better be really cool stuff up in that cabinet. Up I go…

Trina lives in Eureka, Nev. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or share at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!