Interpreting lives from a refrigerator door

Perhaps there's nothing that better describes an American's life than our refrigerator doors. Even if the items don't fully explain us, the length of time they remain does.

I guess.

Although there was good reason that the 2007 doctor appointment card remained. Really.

Recently, Mrs. Brad cleaned off our refrigerator door, removing photos and magnets and pieces of paper taped to the gorgeous white door (I wish we had an avocado- or mustard-colored fridge, like we did back in the day, but you know, progress . . . .)

Anyway, in the spirit of self-revelation, here are some of the items that had taken up semi-permanent residence on the fridge at Casa de Stanhope:

Three magnets for the same appliance repair shop. The refrigerator has avoided problems, but our washer? Dishwasher? Dryer? Rarely has a year gone by without needing some sort or repair. Apparently I repeatedly thought "we should keep this number," without realizing it was already there.

Photos of a bunch of kids. Ours. Our friends'. Several of a boy from Ghana who we sponsored for several years through WorldVision. The most intriguing thing was that we had far more photos of Awudu (the Ghanaian boy) than we did of either of our sons. Because WorldVision sends photos annually and we don't print photos that often.

Death notices of dear friends. This is something that I doubt we had on our fridge in our 20s. And something I fear will increase as we get older.

Magnets from local Chinese food restaurants. Because you never know when you need to order pot stickers.

A list of meals that we prepare. This was very helpful when we meal-planned. Rather than only being able to think of the same five meals every week, we had a list. So we picked the same five items each week off the list.

Several magnets of church campaigns. They were really good reminders about the "40 Days of Prayer" and "40 Days of Community." Until they became part of the background and remained on the fridge for years. Maybe we need one for "40 Years of Campaigns."

"Save the date" magnets for the 2009 and 2010 annual meetings for the company where Mrs. Brad used to work. Because, you know, we needed to save the dates. Years ago.

A Barack Obama for president magnet from 2008. (Note: That item alone will prompt the most comments on this column.)

Had we not cleaned the outside of the fridge (and the inside could conceivably contain some items of equal vintage – after all, when my sisters helped clean out my parents' fridge recently, they found hidden in the back some medicine with an expiration date in the 1980s!), you wonder what a future archaeologist would have concluded about us when she found the fridge during an excavation.

Likely that we were Christians who liked Chinese food when we weren't having spaghetti, tacos, chicken fettuccine or pizza; who owned failing appliances; who knew a lot of kids and who supported Barack Obama in 2008.

But mostly this: That we were obsessive magnet collectors.

I swear it's not true. To prove it, we only kept three magnets as we start the next generation of refrigerator cover.

One of them is about the president. Let the comments begin!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.