Water, water, everywhere

In our fridge is a Brita water pitcher. It's the larger kind with the tap at the bottom, which is really necessary considering the amount of water we all drink. The only problem with this is that when you close the fridge door, it bumps into the tap, if the pitcher is not pushed back on the shelf. The tap opens, and water starts spilling all over the place inside the closed fridge. Then it runs through the door and puddles up on the floor, the puddle sometimes stretching onto the hardwood living room floor. It also runs into the lower left vegetable drawer, which is where my now-soaked food happens to be stored. It becomes a total mess, and it's totally preventable.

Well, earlier this week we had a roommate meeting, and this was brought up. We all vowed to be diligent in pushing the pitcher back on the shelf when we were done using it. But yesterday when I came home from work, I saw the largest puddle to date. The drawer had almost half an inch deep lake inside of it, ruining most of my food. So I did what anyone else would do when nobody's home to complain to: I wrote a sticky note in big black letters that read PUSH IT BACK IN!!! and stuck it to the front of the Brita. I also salvaged what food I could and put it all into Ziploc bags.

Did that help? Did anyone notice? Apparently not, because when I got to the kitchen this morning (I'm always the last one to leave), there again was a massive puddle on the floor. Well, at least my food didn't get any wetter. I cleaned up the mess, wrote an even BIGGER note on a sheet of printer paper, and taped it to the front of the Brita so it overhangs the tap, and now it cannot be ignored.

If it happens again, I'm going to take the Brita out of the fridge and replace it with a roll of paper towels.

Update: The person who forgot to push it back this morning just called me to apologize. I just hope that we all still remember in the future, though.