Since October is Halloween month, I’m doing a series of Fear Factor posts.  Here’s Number 1:

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This week I embarked on a perilous mission. One that forced me to confront the darkest places in my soul. An epic crusade requiring nerves and stomach of steel.

Yes, I cleaned out the vegetable drawer in the fridge.

Ew.

I don’t know why I have such a mental block against vegetables. I eat a healthy diet most of the time. Fruit never goes bad in my house. But veggies? Um… yeah. If it’s not irresistibly delicious like fresh peas and beans or durable like carrots and beets and cabbage, it’s bad news.

I lifted out a bag of lettuce that had turned into soup without ever nearing a stockpot. Half a cucumber squished softly inside its plastic wrapper, its skin dotted with fuzzy black and white spots. A green pepper had only a small ring of black around the stem but when I cut it open it leaked foul-smelling liquid, like a giant green pustule.

Who knew that neglected green peppers turn into witch zits? Dang, if I’d only known, I could’ve kept it until Halloween and used it for decoration.

And speaking of the scariest night of the year, I could’ve offered a pretty good fear factor if I hadn’t cleaned out my bin of plastic storage containers. Seriously, that thing would scare anybody. Any time I need a container, it’s a quest worthy of Indiana Jones.

When I realize I need something from The Bin Of Doom, my heart sinks and a sense of impending disaster washes over me. I don’t even want to open the cupboard door because I know that therein lurks mortal peril. One time I opened it without sufficient preparation, and I spent the next week with a bruise on the bridge of my nose because one of the larger containers hurled itself at my face in a fit of unprovoked aggression. Plastic containers may look benign, but never trust those suckers.

So I cautiously open the cupboard door, muttering arcane incantations to protect myself: “Stay put, you bastards. I’m just going to eeeease out this one little tiny container- Aagh! Ow! Shit!”

That’s another thing about plastic containers: They ferociously protect their young.

Anyway, I finally faced the inevitable. Donned my body armour and face shield and hauled the whole bin out. The plastics mounted a daunting counterattack, but I escaped with only a few dents in my skull and equanimity. Then I sorted and reorganized the whole thing and put it back in the cupboard with my sense of accomplishment tempered by fatalism.

For now, it’s safe to open that door. But I know my enemy all too well (and the enemy is me). After a few iterations of “Oh, I don’t feel like dragging the whole bin out just to replace this one thing; I’ll just balance it on top”, I know the situation will recur. If it happens in time for Halloween, I’ll invite the little ghosties and ghoulies in and scare the crap out of them.

Or I could introduce them to the Tower of Terror: the precarious heap of bottles and cans that threatens to inundate anyone foolish enough to reach into the corner of the pantry. That’d do the trick.

What’s the scariest place in your house?