Today we’re going to enter the holiday spirit and enjoy a good, old-fashioned Halloween scare here at Down the Gravel Road.

Not a haunted house.
Not a freaky costume.
Not a slasher movie.

No, we’re about to experience something much more terrifying than those mundane horrors. We’re checking out the top then scary things lurking in the dark recesses of my refrigerator.

(Insert Alfred Hitchcock Psycho music and creaky door opening here.)

10. Ziplock bags filled with the hacked remains of forgotten onions and bell peppers in the bottom of the vegetable crisper.

9.   An jar half-filled with marmalade gone bitter and resentful after years of neglect.

8.   A pickle jar in which one sweet gerkin, treading pickle juice since last Thanksgiving, is about to give up the ghost.

7.   A bowl of leftover broccoli emitting an eye-watering foul odor.

6.   A shriveled grape, a wrinkled apple, and a discolored orange moldering in the plastic, transparent grave of the the fruit drawer.

5.  One mummified hamburger bun, nearly as old as King Tut, preserved in a plastic shroud.

4.  A bowl of separated egg whites waiting to botulize any fool stupid enough to ignore the green slime floating on the surface.

3.  Bottles of steak sauce, liquid smoke, and soy sauce with shelf lives so long they must be radioactive.

2.   A brand new bottle of mustard with a plugged spout waiting to let loose and spray an unsuspecting victim with modern mustard gas when the right pressure is applied.

1.   A bazillion ketchup packets, collected by Mom during her clean-out-the-fast-food-freebies days, breeding like crazy until there are enough to launch their evil plot to take over the world.

So, are you shaking in your boots yet? Or do you have scarier stuff in your refrigerator? In that case, join the Halloween fun and leave a comment.