Expiration Dates

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Finally, he decided he couldn't put it off any longer. Oh, sure, he had known this day would come; he had done his best to prepare, though admittedly that more or less meant saying "I'll get to it tomorrow" a few more times than was healthy. Now, though, time was up.

It was time to clean the fridge.

Thus it was that he found himself staring in at three shelves of various substances, some of which were still edible. Half-empty mustard jars butted up against random wads of aluminum foil containing god-knew-what; a few random disposable plastic containers were rattling around in there somewhere, he knew, and down in the crisper was probably at least one package of raw meat that had never actually gotten used for anything. Man, this sucked. Maybe he should leave it for tomorrow.

"No," he said aloud. Then, "OW!" he cried, as, startled by the sound of his own voice, he jumped and slammed his head into the top of the open fridge. "Jesus," he muttered, rubbing the back of his skull. "Good one, man."

He returned his attention to the fridge, hoping that, perhaps, it had cleaned itself out while he was otherwise occupied. No such luck.

"Okay, then," he muttered, this time managing to not scare himself into any more blunt head trauma. "Let's do this." He pulled out the first thing that came to hand, a package of flour tortillas, mostly-full. "Expired... the tenth." Into the trash can it went. This wasn't so bad. Next came a tub of sour cream. "The 22nd. Close, but no." Ignoring a rather oozy-looking foil-wrapped something, he reached out and removed a bag of lettuce. "December fifth. Ouch."

He hesitated slightly, then steeled himself and fished a flat package from the very back of the bottom shelf. It turned out to be the remains of a steak, at once rather an expensive one, that had apparently gone into the business of supporting greenish life. Without hesitation he dropped it into the trash, figuring there wasn't much need to check that expiration date.

"Of course, there's still you," he said to the foil-wrapped something, which looked faintly disturbing in response. "But maybe I will save you for tomorrow. After I buy myself a flamethrower."