my house makes things go bad

So yesterday evening I was waiting for my friend El Jefe to come by and pick me up for a movie date night... by the way, I suck at waiting.  So I paced my house for a bit, attempting to find small things I could do so when he called, I could drop it all, toss a piece of cheese into the d-o-g's awaiting jaws and dash out the door.

So I opened my freezer.  And started looking at all the frozen food in there... and couldn't remember exactly when I bought that edamame... or that eggplant parmesan... or that box of fake meat (well, that one was given to me).  So I started reading the best by dates... and slowly my garbage can began to fill up.

Let me explain something.  My house is a best by wasteland.  Somehow, I bring in a box of something, and the next time I see it, it's a year past the best by date.  I don't know how it happens... but it does, without fail.

My school has lunches for the homeless once a month, and so sometimes I remember... and I go to my cabinets and pull out things that I can give away- and then realize they had gone bad about 2 years prior.  What the hell?  I know I haven't been hoarding them for that long!  But apparently, I have.

A prime example is when I had my then-boyfriend (now fiance) over for dinner for the first time.  We'd just started going out- and by going out, I mean spending all our free time together every day.  And I thought, ohhh, I can invite him over and make him dinner, and he'll fall in love with my amazing culinary ways...  So I invited him over, last minute, and decided we'd have pasta.  So there he is, hanging out in my kitchen, and I'm starting to get things ready... I have a pot of water on to boil, a jar of tomato sauce on the counter, and I've even got my apron on.  And so I reach into the cabinet to pull out my fancy boxes of twisted pasta- only to find that the first one was out of date by a year.  Sort of embarrassing, not too bad... So I reach in and grab another one... this one went bad 2 years before.  Ok, so there's another box in there, no big deal.  That one was only a few months past the date.  At this point, I was beginning to freak out...  How the hell could I impress this guy if I couldn't even boil some non-expired pasta?  So I reached into the freezer (where my mother taught me to put my dry spaghetti) and grabbed a box.  There were 5 boxes in there- one of them had to be ok...  And slowly we went through each box, scouring them for the best by dates... until finally we found two that just didn't have anything printed.  SAVED!  (just to keep you up to date, I now make my pasta fresh, SO THERE!)

Back to last night.  So my garbage can is filling- my freezer is emptying- I can actually see the kitchenaid ice cream maker waiting, freezing, wishing to be used.  I can see the shelf!  I can see inside the ice maker that never worked!  My freezer is all new!  And then my phone rings, and it's El Jefe, and I bailed on the rest... there's still a few more packages to consider, left frozen in the food wasteland... perhaps I'll get a chance to delve back in there before Fiance comes home again...