Use By

I’m not what you would classify as your average packrat. I will throw things out, but there are certain items that I just don’t bother to riffle through to see if I need them or if they are good anymore.  For example, cold medication. How often do you really use cold medication that you look at it weekly to determine if it’s still good?

Occasionally, I’ll get to the point where all the extra clutter bothers me and then I’m like a whirlwind. I’ll go through the whole house, tearing down plaster board if it means I can get rid of some more clutter. You’ve no idea the itch I get when I look at my husband’s computer desk and see crap everywhere. I start to twitch. I’ll come in with my dusting cloth and pretend to be dusting; really it’s just an attempt to THROW OUT EVERYTHING ON THE DESK.

The other day my husband wasn’t feeling well so he went into the medicine drawer (Yes, I have a whole drawer full of medicine, Band-Aids, arm slings, crutches, cathers… ok maybe not those last few items, but you get it). Anyways, he went in search of some cold medicine and came flying out of the bathroom like a raving lunatic. He was all, “Honey, do you know how old these are?” 

Clearly the answer was “No” since the medication was obviously still there but the question had been posed. One of the boxes had expired back in August of 2005. Why is that bad? It’s only like 4 years.  It’s not like on September 1, 2005 the pill turned to liquid poison. Come on, it’s like the 5 second rule. Drop something on the floor, pick it up within 5 seconds, and you’re still golden. Listen Lady, suck it up and pop the pill into your mouth, it’s bound to do something. Hell, it might even produce a really funny story we can share with the kids when they are older. My compassion is overflowing sometimes.

Today I managed to finish off this container of peanuts. The sell by date is 3/10/09. Eh……4 months later and those nuts were pretty damn tasty! Though my left pinky toe has been twitching since I finished the last nut…