Aha! I am 60 years old, love avocados, and just last year learned how to care for them. A friend of mine serves them in one form or another for lunch whenever I'm at her house, and they are always perfect. Mine mostly turned rotten in a day or two.

So finally, I asked her how she did that. (I'd also heard the part about not refrigerating them) She said, just buy them when the skin has started getting dark and stick them in the fridge.

It works. You can leave them there for as long as a month and they are always perfectly ripe. I'm amazed.

Sorry, this goes against traditional wisdom but it works.

Kay