Thursday, September 2, 2010

Refridgerator Phenomenon (Weekly Blog 1)

I walked past my refrigerator on a lazy Tuesday afternoon and opened it. To my dismay, I found that there was nothing alluring or interesting inside; a cartoon of milk, some old bread and some butter (which could claim longer residency in our apartment than we could). In disappointment, I closed the fridge and continued my search elsewhere. After opening all of the cabinets, I walked beside the fridge and opened again. Surprise, surprise still nothing noteworthy in it. I continued my search, pouring myself some water, and prowling through my roommate's cabinets. After extensive calculation that everything worth eating would surely not go unnoticed to my friend, I closed the cabinet drawer. I walked past the fridge again and before I knew it I had opened it. It was as if my subconscious installed a beam of hope that somehow this 'mystical cold box' had magically become filled with treasure.
It was then that I noticed the strange fridge phenomenon; whenever one walks past the fridge, assuming that he/she is not rushed with another task, they will open it despite any number of previous attempts. As in the story above, logically I knew that there was no food within the fridge. With quick reasoning I could deduct that no new food would magically appear with another attempt. Yet, the result with each pass of the fridge was the same; realization followed be disappointment.
After additional observation I realized that one did not even need to be hungry for this phenomenon to occur. I found myself opening the fridge with each passing, after eating dinner, late at night and even on the phone ordering a pizza.
This fact intrigued me, so additional research became imperative. I gathered statistics from a random sample of my roommates that were home. The results were the same. A larger sample was taken; friends of mine that were in attendance at a local party. Not surprisingly, the results affirmed my theory. A final survey was conducted over a three week span. Every conversation I had with people involving the subject of food led to a small survey regarding the fridge. The final results were staggering. The surveys showed an amazingly strong correlation with the number of times passed by the refrigerator and amount of times opening it. The factors that seemed to drive these results were as follow; hunger, boredom, talking on the phone, cooking something in the microwave, and midnight wandering of the house. Naturally there were outliers, 2 such male participants were reported to open the refrigerator multiple times with a single passing, While on the other extreme, one female participant reported she had only opened the refrigerator twice in her life.
As could be expected the number of cases proving this theory rose dramatically with awakened awareness. The survey participants continually phoned my office number (cell phone) with exciting stories of how they have just accidentally opened the refrigerator 7 times in the course of 10 minutes. As one can imagine, these messages brought me an indescribable joy with additionally excitement that we were finally on the verge of fully understanding the subconscious mind within the kitchen setting.
In an effort to rise public awareness, I have simplified my refrigerator phenomenon theory as follows; any person within the means of ones' own kitchen, without the preoccupation of an imperative or dominating task, will open the refrigerator upon the path of passing it. Not surprisingly, further research is being conducted as we speak to explain this strange act of human nature.

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