EXPIRATION DATES

Expiration dates aren’t real. They put those little stamps on the outside of the packaging to make us think the product has gone bad. Then, they tell us to throw out the perfectly good moldy stuff, because they want us to purchase more product. So wasteful!

Bottom line, I’m not buying it—or shall I say, I’m not buying more crap just because of some silly date stamped on the bottle.

Here’s a few examples of how big business is making us buy more: milk, vegetables, medicine…I could go on, but let’s start here.

Milk doesn’t go bad. Sure, it gets a little chunky, and when sitting in the back of the fridge for too long, it gains a bit of an odor and slightly discolors to a light yellow, but be creative. That chunky milk can be repurposed to make sour cake, sour muffins, buttermilk, and cheese. See, never goes bad.

Green fuzzy mold grows on vegetables. Rather than throwing the rotting veggie out, how about instead, you cut off the fuzz and keep eating. Store that green goodness and save it for winter—the time of year when everyone is contagious with bacteria and viruses. Might as well munch on some penicillin and avoid the doctor’s office full of sick people. Plus, let’s keep in mind that vodka is made from fermented veggies.

Wow, I’m full of great advice.

Now, some might call me crazy for keeping old medicine around. And by some people, I’m talking about the wife. She’s a bit irritated with me right now, but that’s because she’s been programmed to buy more product due to expiration dates. She’s not upset about anything I’ve done wrong, of course.

So, there we are, pulling weeds in bathing suits, bare hands, and flip-flops, ripping out overgrowth mixed in with a bit of poison ivy. A day later, something odd occurred; our arms and for some reason, my belly, now have small, itchy oil balls bubbling off the surface. Not surprising, right? It’s a normal reaction to hanging out with the ivy.

I went into the medicine cabinet and pulled out the good ol’ Caladryl to relieve the itch. Four days later, the wife’s arm is getting worse. The red circle is growing and swelling as if she was bitten by a brown recluse and more little oily balls of itchy spots keep popping up. More Caladryl.

Five days later, she yells from the other room—because women do that—and proceeds to give me a lecture about the expired ointment.

Sure, it expired twenty years ago, literally. Sure, it hasn’t alleviated the itch. Sure, the infection looks like her arm might need amputation. It’s still good. Why throw out perfectly good medicine? And that’s when I went to the store to buy more.