The Principal of the Academy has officially hit the short, dark, grinding, exhaustive stretch of the year where instead of skipping for joy into your classroom, zoom room or google hangout or google gaggle or google meet and greet, Loom, Canvas, School brains, or whatever or hallway or bathroom or kitchen or office or whatever relatively clear space you go to start your day…you are trudging. Maybe even shuffling or stumbling or wobbling into your place of “work”.

I know that here at the Donadoni Academy there has been such a flurry of frenetic frenzied fury of activity each day that the Principal now drags, maybe even half pulls himself into his chair each evening and tries to figure out how running a school of 2 people can be so much harder than a school of 2000 people.

So, in these dark and uncertain times where do we go for comfort? Where in the house is there more special energy flowing from it than anywhere else? Where do staff and students and administrators go to find renewal or refreshments? Where in the house/school does the center of energy reside? I think my biology teacher…Ms. Kapalewski would call it the mitochondria of the cell? Where is the hub of humanity congregating, convening, desperate for nourishment of the soul, mind and body? Where? Where? Where? (That reminds me of the time this week we had a student looking for her missing shin pad for soccer practice 5 minutes before it is supposed to start and asking where where Where WHere WHEre WHERe WHERE is it?…although who can do justice to the actual sound of that screeching, pulsating gush of desperate where is its…but let’s stay focused on what we are talking about today…). Where in our Academy do we look for direction, protection, milk, and comfort?

This invaluable piece of the Academy, or any academy, home, school, office stands tall, strong, and powerful-usually in a centrally located place in the kitchen. Which makes sense. But it is more than a holding cell for cheese sticks, yogurt, and whatever strange homeopathic type of Kombucha bottles the Assistant Principal smuggles past security and into the fridge. When that nasty treat will be consumed is anyone’s guess…but I would hate to be anywhere near the person that drinks that stuff when they drink it after I made the stupidest mistake of all time by actually opening the bottle and sniffing it. Who does that? Who picks up a bottle of something that seems suspiciously disgusting and sniffs it? Well, I do. I mean, I can’t actually see it, but damn it, I can smell it. And I usually regret it. But once again you have distracted me.

We are here to pay special attention to the Refrigerator and all She represents for us. She proudly shows off our report cards and cheesy pictures and cool magnets of places we’ve been. She proudly holds on her head whatever the Principal cannot find to put anywhere else like the odd shaped pan or 23 boxes of baking soda that were discovered during the recent spate of walk-throughs and classroom observations. Sometimes you can find chocolate or a 5 dollar bill in her hair. She contains an abundant supply of fruit, juices, meats, vegetables, rotting parsley, moldy mangoes, and cheese, and lots of cheese- sticks, shredded, orange, sliced, white, and some of course green. And fuzzy. And that gives me a great idea to pass along to my Science Department- why don’t we see how long it takes for a bowl of peas to go from individual peas (not in a pod) to a giant foam block of mold? Of course- we have baseline data from when we managed that feat from Thanksgiving 2012 to probably Easter when we found the poor “sponge-bowl” of transformed peas. We got distracted again. Back to the purpose of this post…honor the Fridge.

It is the first place everyone goes to in the morning. (After the bathroom). It has a door that is opened and closed 124,473,986 times a day -on average. Give or take a few. And that includes the “I am not hungry, I am just looking” door openings which seem to be common here. How many times do we open a door and are not certain if we are ready to take the plunge, or accept our fate that the milk is empty (which is better than the milk being chunky). Nevertheless…

Sometimes we open that fridge when we want to grab a cheese stick, but how many times do we open that door and ponder the future of pickles and sour cream in November? Well, whatever we do when we open the Source of Sustenance we should recognize it’s importance. Who else holds our favorite meats, cheeses, berries, and salad dressings? I am going to suggest that the school committee channel funds to upgrade the maintenance of the Family Fridge. She does so much for us that we can’t have anything happen to her. Not now. We are in a pandemic! As the Principal I can present mounds of data to support the importance of an industrial strengthened door (not because anyone would ever actually hang on the door that would be crazy, right?), reinforced safety doors on the freezer, and possibly an additional FTE full time staff member to randomly assess the current capabilities of the Family Fridge. That is because someone is always bringing something into the house that “has to go in the fridge/freezer”. Like we’re all set on apple cider. No thanks. Want more apples? Nah. I am actually “appeley” appalled at the amount of apples that roll around the belly of the Family Fridge sometimes! So please if you stop by- don’t bring anything I gotta put in the Fam Fridge. DEFINITELY NOT APPLES.

As the building grows quiet, you know who is still humming softly in the background? That’s right. The Family Fridge. Humming along, sometimes making weird noises depending on how sophisticated your ice making paraphernalia is. But late at night, while everyone is asleep, She hums and hums and takes care of the hummus and orange juice and eggs. Every night. God Bless Her. The Family Fridge.

Here’s hoping the staff and students at the Academy can show appreciation for the Fridge. Maybe put a special magnet on her. Or at least wash off the crusty, off-white chunks of mysterious goo stuck on her door handle?

That’s all I got. I think. Thanks for coming. I am going to head to the Fridge for a piece of the extra cheesy pizza I saw hiding in the back corner of the bottom shelf.

And yes, we seem to consume gargantuan amounts of cheese. Hence, the cheese references everywhere. Cheese makes everything great…but that’s for another day.

Thanks for Coming!