Thanks for the Memories

You know those dates on food packages that say, "Best if used by..."? Well, those are expiration dates, and they mean you shouldn't eat the food. Unless you're a grocery store, in which case it means "Meh..." and it's left on the shelf, or "Gee, a month from now this will be lovely in our 'homemade' cheese spread...", or "Oh good, time to put this on the salad bar...".

Right now at Brand A grocery store there is cheese on the shelf with an expiration date of July 5, 2010. It is not aged cheese that is okay to leave on the shelf six months past the expiration date. But whatever. Maybe it will bring back good memories, right? It is just two shelves away from the cheddar cheese with tomato basil seasonings that has an abundance of white and green furry flowering things on it. And while some people believe cheese is cheese, I'm pretty sure even bleu cheese isn't supposed to have furry stuff blossoming on it, and certainly not cheddar cheese. And speaking of white and green flowering stuff and cheesy things, Brand A also never lets its out of date broccoli parmesan salad go to waste. Either I'm giving it out as samples (only the recently deceased salad, not the really bad stuff -- we do have some scruples), or yup, you guessed it, it is salad bar bound. Yeehaw. And by the way, that cheese spread I was giving as samples yesterday -- the cheese in it expired the early part of last December.

Yes, in the grocery biz expiration dates don't mean what they do to you and me. They are simply a trip down memory lane. Sound nasty and maybe even, oh I don't know....WRONG? Yeah, I agree. And I have talked to two department heads, an assistant store manager, and one of my fellow sample ladies even talked to the store director -- the "big boss", and still nothing has been done about the handling of out of date items.

So, check the expiration dates, don't buy green furry stuff, don't ever eat from a salad bar (I could write a book about why...just trust me on this one), and the next time you meet a grocery store employee, smile sweetly and say, "Thanks for the memories." They won't know what you're talking about. But you and I will.