Tuesday night, after cards and pie, my neighbor offered me a bag of Jell-O No-Bake cheesecake mix.
Just the filling mix, not the pie crust mix.
If you've ever made one, you know there are two bags in the box.
One is to make the crust and the other is to make the cheesecake filling.
I immediately thought, "That's awesome! I'm pretty sure I have a bag of the pie crust mix at home."
And guess what? I did have a bag of just the pie crust mix in my cupboard.
Still in the box, on the top shelf.
It was meant to be - in a weird, ironic sort of way.
I dragged a chair over so I could reach it, and brought it down to the counter.
And then I looked at the expiration date.
The pie crust mix was from 2013. I moved into this house in 2019.
I moved that box to this house from my apartment, with one lonely bag of pie crust mix in it.
I had to laugh.
Why would I even keep that? I rarely bake, even a no-bake cheesecake.
But I also hate to throw things away. Especially food.
This is also why I have so many condiments in my fridge. I wrote a blog about that once too.
I shook my head as I looked at the date on the box.
It did say "best when used by," not expires by.
I wonder...should I still make that cheesecake? Or will the crust taste like stale graham crackers?
Too funny.
In general, I think expiration dates are helpful.
They warn us of potential danger. Give us a guideline to follow. Prevent food poisoning.
But sometimes I'm not sure how accurate they really are.
Sometimes we can stretch past them a bit, by a few days, maybe even a week or two.
I often go with the sniff test. If it smells okay, it's probably okay.
And I've made it this far. Never had food poisoning. Not even once.
Maybe whoever makes up those dates is just trying to get us to buy food more frequently than necessary.
We'll probably never know the real truth.
It also makes me question - what if things like friendships, relationships, or even our actual lives had posted expiration dates?
Would we throw them away as soon as those dates were passed?
Or would we try to stretch them, hang on for days, weeks, even years because we know they're not spoiled yet, that there's still a lot of good left in them?
Maybe expiration dates in those situations could motivate us.
To spend more time with our friends, to cultivate deeper relationships, to appreciate our lives more.
To find more ways to smile and love and laugh.
To not put so many things on the top shelf where we can so easily forget about them.
Maybe they could even motivate us to make a cheesecake more than once every 10 years.
Speaking of...
I'll let you know how it turns out. 😉
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