Free Not That You Asked (9780307822215) by Andy Rooney Page A

find any in my own. Maybe what we need in this country is some kind of neighborly mutual-help program. It’s a lot easier to throw away someone else’s leftovers than it is your own. We might work out some exchange program whereby a friend or neighbor comes to our house while we go to theirs. Each would set aside sentimentality and clean the other’s house of leftovers.
    The most conspicuous and persistent leftovers, of course, go in the refrigerator in little plastic boxes. At any given time, there are eight to ten lumps of leftovers aging on the shelves of our refrigerator. Just last night I put what amounted to about half a serving of squash in a container that was big enough to hold ten times that much. I know perfectly well what the future holds for this pitiful little morsel. It will sit there for a week, gradually finding its way to the back of the refrigerator, where a jar of pickles sits. The pickles were opened six weeks ago. I hope the jar of pickles and the summer squash can find something in common because they’re going to spend a lot of time together. Then, some day down the road, I’ll be rooting around back there looking for the mayonnaise, and wonder what’s in the plastic box.I’ll open it up and detect a strange odor emanating from the lump of yellow in the bottom.
    â€œYuck,” I’ll say to myself and scrape it into the garbage.
    When something you’ve cooked is fresh and your palate is reminding your memory of how good it was, it’s difficult to discard it. When that same dish is tired and stale and nothing more than a space-taker in the refrigerator, it becomes a pleasure to cast out.
    The trick to getting rid of leftovers is to anticipate how you’re going to feel about those items in two weeks.
    And it isn’t just the refrigerator. There are leftovers in life no matter what we’re doing. Every time I buy an electrical appliance, there are parts in the box it comes in that I don’t use and can’t throw away. As soon as a month later, when I come across them in a drawer, I can’t figure out what they’re for.
    I bought a small antenna for the television set upstairs. It helps the reception, but in the little plastic bag of parts that came with it there are three bolts, a bracket and some kind of insulator left over. These things are all brand new and it would be a crime to throw them away, but the kitchen drawer set aside for miscellaneous items is filled with leftover hardware.
    Paint makes a miserable leftover. It’s almost impossible to plan a job in such a way that you buy just the right amount of paint and finish with none left over. A quart of paint is so expensive that there aren’t many of us who can throw out what remains in the can even though we rarely use it. There’s a gallon can in the basement representing what was left over after I painted the twins’ bedroom blue fourteen years ago. So much paint dripped down the sides of the can that I am no longer able to read the label. I don’t even know for sure whether it’s oil- or water-based paint. I doubt if it would make a noise if I shook it. There it is, though. If I ever need it, I know just where to find it.
    It’s a good thing you don’t have to keep paint in the refrigerator.
A Plug for New Electrical Outlets
    They’re building dams and nuclear power plants and scientists are talking about harnessing the sun’s energy to produce electrical power but they aren’t doing a thing about the rat’s nest of electric cords,outlets and homemade lash-ups around our television sets, behind our living-room couches and under our beds.
    Every time I want to plug something in, I have to crawl under a table, move a chair or go down in the basement to find an extension cord or some kind of converter. Something’s wrong with electrical outlets in America.
    I’d vote for the presidential candidate who stood on a platform that