Monday, September 17, 2007

Tortillas

I went shopping on Saturday. Grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. I have a budget and you know, that's no fun. Either way, I brought home to food, and made Jeremy carry it in and made him help me put it away. He pulled out a package of tortillas. He kind of shook his head, half confused but half resigned. Then he put the tortillas in the fridge under the other two packages of tortillas.

"Ah well... you know how it is.." I said vaguely.

"Right," he said. He doesn't understand how I am capable of going shopping with neither a list nor a clear idea of what we already own. I say that I don't need a list because I forget to put things on it, or I forget to bring the list, or I lose the list on my way there, or I lose it somewhere in the store. And no one can keep track of exactly everything that they own. You're bound to forget something and buy something you already have.

Sometimes I worry that I have some kind of subconscious fear of running out of tortillas and sour cream, but honestly, it's not like we're throwing these things away constantly. It's more like we simply have plenty on hand. Just in case.

On Sunday I made tacos. Jeremy pulled out the top package of tortillas, which were stacked by age, oldest on top because he (strangely) doesn't have faith that I will carefully examine all the packages in the fridge before I decide which one is worthy of my taco meat. I made a face at the package.

"They're fine!" he insisted.

"Oh?" I said suspiciously. "What's the date on them?" Now, dates on packages of food are a sore subject with us. Jeremy insists that if something is dated for, say 9/17/07, then that is the date by which the makers of the product were hoping to sell it. To me, the food is spoiled at 12:01 AM on September 17 of 2007. So perhaps Jeremy can be forgiven for sighing at this question as he looked for the date on the tortilla bag.

"August of 2007," he said. "They're fine!"

"AH HA!! I knew it! You're always trying to make me eat old food!" I said. I made a show of meticulously examining the tortillas under the light, sniffing at them and flopping them while squinting at them. We mustn't let him think he can shove any old food at me and I'll just eat it.

4 comments:

erin said...

Ugg...dates. I'm paranoid too!!! I sometimes even get grossed out if it is the day before the dreaded date on the food. I just wish fruits and veggies had a "warning label" of when they go bad. Those items freak me out even more - fear of the unknown I suppose!

Anonymous said...

I hate dates! They could quite simply make you sick. You never know whether something could make you just really sick or anything. I get really freaked out if I find out I ate something even on the date of expiration! Aaah!

Anonymous said...

AAAAUGH! Dates! They drive me nuts not knowing what on earth they could carry! Yucky germs and gross stuff! Ewie!

Anonymous said...

How are you supposed to know when some things go rotten when they don't have dates! OMG! We could very closely die!