This essay was written for hhgregg to spotlight the GE Café refrigerator with a Keurig Brewing System (the only refrigerator to brew Keurig K-cup Pods!) – it’s a true time-saver/space-saver in our own home. Thanks for reading!

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We’ve been living hard, man.

Twice this week, Bee and I have hit the pillow after 10pm and let’s face it, neither one of us are used to seeing the moon in any capacity. We’re morning birds, up with the sun, down by eight, naps welcomed in between.

But the sun is out, and so are we.

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Yesterday, I try to wake Bee up for a late morning playdate but she says, “Ooooooooooof” and promptly rolls over, a teenager hitting snooze.

“Breakfast in ten,” I whisper as I close the door behind me and pad out to the kitchen to chop Sweet Potatoes in my pjs.

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My World-Famous (Exaggeration) Clean-Out-Your-Fridge Breakfast Hash “Recipe”

1. Peer into the fridge. Survey the state of your arugula, your grape tomatoes. Decide that yes, they’ll do, and also find a few good green beans, some spinach. Things are looking up.
2. Thaw some bacon from the freezer; wash and dice the sweet potatoes.
3. What’s this you’ve found in the fruit basket? A perfectly ripe avocado?! You are in luck.
4. Chop the thawed bacon; throw into a pan with sweet potatoes and heat on medium-high over copious amounts of ghee, or bacon grease if you’ve got it.
5. Add in an irrational amount of garlic powder and a touch of black pepper.
6. Brown the bacon and sweet potatoes, then throw arugula, spinach, cut green beans. Or really, any green produce on its last leg. Just get it on in there.
7. Remove once cooked, top with sea salt, avocado, a fried egg and cherry tomatoes.

—

“Did you make baaaaaconnnnn?” she says, emerging into the kitchen with sleepy eyes and disheveled hair.

“I did!” I say, and she leaps with joy as I preset my coffee’s brew time and dish out breakfast.

Bacon gets her out of her bed; coffee gets me out of mine.

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“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” T.S. Eliot said this.

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Sometimes I wonder if technology has gone too far. Are we allowing tiny robots to take over our chores? Will our children know how to run a proper vacuum, will they know how to count coins, will they know how to brew their own coffee?

But then I watch my refrigerator pour this magical elixir from a Keurig pod using fresh, filtered water straight into my mug as I’m grabbing forks and napkins and I think, eh, our children will know plenty. Come here, tiny robots. Have a seat, stay as long as you’d like.

—

“Eat up,” I tell Bee. “Our friends will be here any minute!”

“What color is a minute?” she asks.

—

And this is what I think of when I think of time-saving tricks – of fridges that make coffee, of phones that order groceries, of instant dinners and temperature controlling apps and high-speed blenders that make pints of juice in eight seconds flat.

What will we do with all of this time? It has been saved, borrowed, stolen. How will we spend it? What color will our minutes be?

—

Our hhgregg delivery guy, Willy, brought our fridge on a day ripe with sunshine a few weeks ago, and I loved him instantly. As he showed us the features (“Hot water dispenser, man!”), as he taught us how to polish it (“Only with the grain, man! This is keyyyyy.”), we talked of summer plans.

“Imma drink a lot of lemonade, man.” he says. “Imma soak in it.”

—

Summer is here. We’re ready to soak in it, ready to welcome it with fanfare, and yet I know this is how it works with me. I crave a new season like my morning coffee, and when the rush of the new is over, I tire. I want something different. July is never halfway over before I sit sweating in a swimming pool, dreaming of plaid scarves, picking apples, raking leaves.

But today is today, and the coffee is hot and the hash is ready and our friends are coming to visit, and soon we’ll be off to the zoo.

I’ll take it, for now.

—

I don’t know what color a minute is. I don’t know if we’re making good use of the time we save on a regular basis, but I have a feeling we’ll know it when we see it.

I have a feeling that today, it has shown up in red rosy cheeks, in sleepy blonde tendrils, a clear blue sky outside, the rich brown of my morning coffee.

And the new, wild hope of many more colors, minutes, coffees to come.

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