I have a thing about expiration dates.
I bought yogurt last Saturday.
Today, I threw it out.
Why? Well, while giving breakfast the old college try this morning, the yogurt sort of… tasted funny. I can’t put my finger on what it was exactly.
Au revoir, mes Yoplait amis.
I blame this entire neurosis on my sweet Grandma Julie. She never really had much and so what she did have – food – she kept around. Past expiration. Always the mother hen, she’d offer me food from the second I walked in the door to the second I left. It didn’t matter how much I tried to turn the poor woman down (“It’s okay, grandma. We ALREADY ate dinner.”) she’d keep asking.
Of course, I’d give in eventually. Who can say no to grandma? Most of the time, I’d be treated to a fudgsicle – totally safe.
Once, I ventured in the Iffy Zone -the refrigerator- and we can refer to that as mistake #1.
While adding the milk (mistake #2) to a bowl of just-poured cereal, the milk did not flow.
It plopped.
Horrifying.
And now you understand my problem with perishables.
Well, friends, that’s all the time we have today for “Shrink Your Brain” with Sarah. Join us next time when we analyze her Catholic guilt!
2.February.2009 at 4:22 pm
I’m going to send my husband to the link of this blog post. He thinks I am the only person with an unnatural fear of expiration dates. Mine is so bad I wont even drink the “butt” milk – the bottom 1/2 inch of the carton. Expired salad dressing? No way. Expired anything… nope! I even dig towards the back at the grocery store, because if they practiced rotating their stock, the back should be the freshest.
Glad to hear that there are other crazies out there…!
2.February.2009 at 5:36 pm
Put my name on the crazy list right next to yours.
Our deli sometimes sets the printer wrong, and instead of printing a real expiration date on the package, they’ll print the date sold, but the sticker is pre-printed “expiration date”, so it looks like it’s immediately expired. Drives me nuts.
I have scolded my husband many times for not throwing away the old deli meat whenever we buy new. He once fixed a sandwich for me with the three day-old stuff, and I freaked on him, “You need to love me enough to give me new meat!!”
I’d rather be crazy than poisoned by tainted dairy, though.
2.February.2009 at 8:40 pm
Ann and Anita- I’m glad that I have comrades in my craziness.
3.February.2009 at 3:26 pm
I also belong on your list. My husband always says that’s the date they have to take it off the shelf, but I think expiration date is self explanatory. It’s not called the “Take it off the shelf date” is it. They call it expiration for a reason. It has expired and if we wish to not expire we must throw it away. We are right in our thinking and the rest of them are just death wish thrill seekers who will rue yes rue the day they didn’t listen to us.
Viva the expiration date!!!!
3.February.2009 at 7:18 pm
I’m with you! In fact, in my opinion, the DAY it expires is already too late.
3.February.2009 at 9:18 pm
Um. I love you. I sniff my milk every morning. Even the morning I open it.
4.February.2009 at 5:53 pm
throw me in too. MIL hates me for it. i had beyond a year expired salad dressing poured on to my salad and ingested and since then i check the expiration dates on everything. she knows when she leaves me alone their place for more than a couple hours that they will be out of expired medications, food, and other assorted perishables. i think it’s the only thing she can hold against me, but srsly… summer of 2004, FIL had a cream in his medicine cabinet that dated to 1984!! that ain’t helpin NO ONE.
5.February.2009 at 2:13 am
LOL @ Kir. Joe’s dad gets so frustrated when I go to their cabin w/out them.. because they come up there and I’ve thrown away all of the soda and salad dressing. I have no idea where it comes from – everytime I go up to the cabin I find something that is expired by at least 2 years.. I purge the place every single time, where does this contraband expired shiz come from?
5.February.2009 at 5:18 pm
Executive Decision: WE are the new normal.
11.February.2009 at 6:37 pm
I know I’m pretty late getting to this post, I too must throw things away. I still watch my mother trim the rotting parts of fruit off and EAT THE REST! I remind her she has money to buy new fruit. Needless to say I don’t get very far.