Living Retired — ‘THE EXPIRATION EXPOSE’
Living Retired: ‘THE EXPIRATION EXPOSE’
When I close my eyes, I can still see the look on my wife’s face at lunch yesterday. Jan scrunched her nose and pursed her lips. She had that ‘mother of a baby look’ that says, “Are your diapers dirty?” I am not at the Depends stage, so I knew it was not me.
“Gary, there is something terribly wrong with this melba toast. It is totally bland. It has no taste. None whatsoever!” With that she dropped the brittle cracker to her plate. It didn’t surprise me – it smashed into smithereens and disintegrated to dust.
I laughed out loud, “Hey Jan another one bites the dust!”
Alexa, “Okay playing ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen.”
This was not music to Jan’s ears.
“Jan, melba toast isn’t supposed to have any taste. If it had flavour it would be called bread!”
She wasn’t convinced. “Gary lets check the expiration date on the box. This melba toast is stale.”
“Jan, I’m just saying if taste is what you want from melba toast, eat the box! Or better yet if you want something with some crunch I can serve up a platter of the leftover cedar mulch I spread in the garden beds.”
So, imagine my surprise when I turned the melba box over and read ‘2021-07-23.’ I was GOBSMACKED!
Also printed on the box was ‘Made with 100% recycled fibres’ – I’m not sure whether they mean the cardboard box or the melba toast.
“Jan, the nutrition label says melba toast is low in fat, has no trans fat, contains no artificial flavours or colours, has no preservatives, no cholesterol, and only a trace amount of salt.”
“So, Gary what’s your point?”
“Jan, melba toast is just another word for tofu!”
There are ‘Best Before’ dates and ‘Expiry’ dates. To be fair, the melba toast box did not state if ‘2021-07-23’ was the ‘Best Before’ date or the ‘Expiry’ date. It doesn’t matter to me – it was toast.
Do we really need ‘Best Before’ and ‘Expiry’ dates? Do we need to be told the time has come to toss out the cheddar cheese? That layer of scum that’s turning into green mould screams at me to toss it in the trash!
They don’t have Expiry or Best Before dates for our fresh peaches – when you can’t see through the swarms of fruit flies hovering overtop the kitchen countertop it is time to toss your peaches. Looking at them is enough to toss your cookies.
Please! Can anyone explain to me why there is an Expiry date for sour cream? When you reach for it in the grocery store cooler IT IS ALREADY BAD! What more can happen to it – become more sour?
I wanted to learn more. So, I went online to find how long we should keep things.
First, I checked out household staples: beer. According to the internet beer must be consumed in 4 months. Yep, that’s fake news! Nobody keeps beer for 4 months.
Here is another one…
I bet you didn’t know there is a Best Before date for – get this – dental floss! I checked our bathroom vanity where we stash our collection of sample-size containers of dental floss we get each time we visit the dentist. We have a handful including three that we haven’t opened that expired in December 2019. I said to Jan, “At this rate the dental floss will outlast my teefe!”
This brings me to liquor. The experts say unopened liquor stays good indefinitely. But once the bottle is opened, it lasts for a year – fat chance that will happen. The experts also suggest once a bottle is opened that you keep it in a dark place. That is why I keep our old Styrofoam camping picnic cooler next to the bed.
Now Jan is telling me that my clothes have reached their ‘Expiry’ date!
“Gary, it is long overdue for you to replace your pants. ‘Relax fit pants designed to sit at the waist’ are not meant to be hiked up to your armpits. Lord help me!”
“Hey, Jan it’s a pandemic – I am practicing proper high-jeans.”
Jan and I have been married for a long time, but I wear the pants in the family – its just that Jan tells me which ones.
