Pantry Pride

When you read this title, did you think I was going to write all about the former grocery store chain, Pantry Pride?

Well, I’m not. This week’s tale is about the pride I can finally take in my pantry. Yes, this is how pathetic my life is. I’m excited about the fact that I organized my pantry. (So if you were thinking that your life wasn’t full of great, exotic trips and amazing tales of adventure, and feeling down about it, reading this column will make you feel better. Much, much better…)

It all began on a normal weekend—well, as normal as one can be during a global pandemic. My husband and I were figuring out what household project we were going to conquer.

Then it happened.

He opened the door of one side of our pantry, and a bag of chips fell to the floor.

“That’s it!” he yelled. “I’m so tired of not knowing what we have in here.”

I had been tired of the completely disorganized pantry for a while, but it had become one of those things that was “out of sight, out of mind.” I could just shut a door and—Poof!—the mess disappeared. Problem solved.

But not really. So I was right on board.

I said before that this wasn’t an amazing tale of adventure, but in one way it was. I discovered a lot. Like how practically everything now comes with an expiration date.

When did this start? When we were kids, if you had a canned good, and it wasn’t bulging at the lids, it was considered good forever. Yes—FOREVER!

What happens now? Do products suddenly reach a certain date and turn to poison? How do they know exactly when this happens? And do I really want to know the answers to these questions?

Even soda and beer have expiration dates. Seriously? When I was a kid, if you had a Coke, you had no idea when it was bought. And you know what? It tasted good anyway. Today, if soda is past its “due date,” a lot of times, it tastes terrible. What on earth did they do to soda to make it begin to go “bad”?

Again, I don’t think I really want to know.

My family doesn’t eat a ton of processed foods anymore. We eat much better. So I do expect things to go stale from time to time. But I don’t expect mustard to go bad. Did you know that it now does?

I thought that the salt content of pickles would make them last into the next millennium. But no—it seems that they now go bad too.

Olives? They go bad.

Mayo? Goes bad.

Relish? Goes bad.

Now, my pantry is clean. We know what we have.

Potentially life-threatening foods have been properly disposed of.

And now we have nothing to eat…guess we should wait to tackle the freezer, huh?

Michele Wojciechowski, who now has to go to the grocery store to buy “fresh” canned goods, writes Wojo’s World® from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning humor book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter .

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