When I opened the fridge last night to get out a carton of milk I noticed right away that the contents were even more disordered than usual. Jam jars and margarine tubs and condiment bottles, along with a lone, wayward leek, were jumbled together in a topsy-turvy mess in the middle of the fridge. At first I thought that Olof must have been especially careless when clearing away after dinner, but upon closer examination I realized what had happened — the glass shelf had broken, snapped right in two, and everything that had been standing on it had slid down into the chasm left by the break.

The only thing I can reason out is that the expansion/contraction phenomenon that we learn about in grade-school science was brought to bear on my refrigerator shelf when I placed two plactic storage containers filled with hot leftovers there. Who knew such a thing could happen? I know that can’t have been the first time in the three-plus years we’ve had that fridge that I’ve put a hot dish on the glass shelf. Or maybe it was, I don’t know … either way, it was one time too many, obviously.