Comment: A chilling tale of fridge fury

As I walked home the other night I found myself wondering about the contents of the fridge. Was there some cheese? How was the milk situation? Did I remember to throw away the pot of yoghurt that last week was already well past its sell-by date and - if I listened carefully - was emitting a soft knocking sound, as though something inside was trying to get out?

When I got home and opened the fridge door I could have sworn that something jumped off one of shelves and ran out of the room. I know that it wasn't my lump of cheddar, as that was sitting there humming gently to itself, so it must have been the yoghurt.

But it was the cheese that interested me, as I was in the market for a nice piece of Welsh rarebit. However, not unlike the yoghurt the cheese was well past its prime. The way that it blunted the grater convinced me that I would be better off using it to clear a path to a world of new, fresh cheeses by throwing it through the window of the nearest delicatessen. But I was famished, so I ate it anyway.

It was then I decided that I needed to make an investment - not in some new cheese, but in one of those cool Internet-enabled refrigerators.

Fridges, like just about everything else, can be linked up to a range of different appliances, businesses and communication channels thanks to the Internet. If I had one of these fridges, I said to myself, my food-related worries would be over. While I was out the fridge would analyse its contents and send a swift email to my grocer, ordering whatever it found lacking.

But I had a restless night. Maybe it was the revenge of the cheese. Admittedly, before going to bed I watched most of The Terminator, in which a network of computers called Skynet becomes too intelligent, wages a war and ultimately takes over the world. The result of this was that I started to worry about whether this kind of thing would happen if I filled my kitchen with intelligent appliances.

Would the white obelisk sit staring through slanted LEDs at the microwave, blaming it for its lack of food, and silently plotting its downfall? It would be quite simple. The fridge could wait until I left a metal implement inside it, say a spoon. It could then give itself a little shimmy - all fridges have the power to make a lot of noise, and do a lot of rattling - and knock the spoon into some food. When the food found its way into the microwave, it would react to the metal and destroy itself.

This would be inconvenient - I would have to turn the normal oven on for a start and order a new microwave - but the implications could be further reaching. Once this battle was out of the way the fridge might turn its attention to me, the next in line in the food chain.

I might be being over-cautious but I think that I will pursue a wait and see policy on this one.

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