Are expiry dates written in stone?

At 5am I had the most annoying encounter with 5 bottles of expired cough syrup ranging with dates from December 2006 to October 2010. Furious I made do with the Strepsil with a soft outer coating that was stuck lonely to the bottom of our medicine box.

So when I woke up this morning, with a sore throat and sniffly nose I immediately yelled for my mum. Her response to my complaint about the syrup, “it’s fine if it’s clear”, only added to my misery.  I needed food and fast.  My mum rattled off a menu, which this morning seemed high on eggs: scrambled, fried, boiled and poached. Immediately I was suspicious that the eggs in the fridge were on a deadline too. This is not paranoia on my part. It is my mum’s attitude  (“when I was a child we didn’t have expiry dates, we just smelled it and if it smelled ok we ate it”) that has given me this anxiety about expiry dates.  

In our house there are some tell tail signs that food is about to go off. Eggs only on the breakfast menu sends alarm bells ringing, dinners with random ingredients chucked together is a usually a sign that the fridge has been cleared out and a pot of soup will sometimes coincide with an empty vegetable bin.

There are some short-term gains to this strategy, she never throws food out but she has spoiled Christmas dinner for me forever. One Christmas she declared that we would eat the turkey on Christmas Eve, European style. That turkey tasted strange and later she confessed that it had smelled a little high and had to cooked urgently, even if it was only Christmas Eve that day. I simply cannot eat turkey ever again.

God knows what I ate as I child before I had the understood of importance of expiry dates. Clearly for my mum expiry dates are not written in stone if written at all.

Does a Wallet have Nine Lives?

Well I don’t think so. Mine had only 2. The first time I lost it in Canada, I pulled it unknowingly out of my bag with my jacket. But over there they just took the cash and threw the wallet back, to my delight because I was so far away from home. I lost the same wallet again on Saturday night. Yes……… you got it, pulled it out of my bag with my jacket again but this time they took it all.  You know that awful moment when you realize its actually gone, its almost like losing a limb, and this time the chances are looking slim that I will get it back. Why not do what the Canadians do, take the cash and leave the wallet? Why throw someone else’s life in the bin? If you find my wallet take my money but leave me my life. Not only had the wallet sentimental value but also each irreplaceable card told a story.  A Canadian student ID card, my constant companion for my year away from home, was still valid until 2015. It, and all the discounted travel that go with it, can never be replaced.  My Subway card was one sandwich away from a freebee and my Starbucks similarly loaded. Every student knows how one free meal in the week can boost the entertainment budget. Not to mention the humiliation of being asked at 3am , “Do you really want to cancel these cards?”

  

 Looking forward to the day when I’m standing in a queue for a nightclub next to fraudulent Laoise Cotter using my ID’s.  Pay back time!!!!

Drink is the enemy, or is it?

Vivre la vie sans regret – is a phrase I use frequently to lighten the consequences of choices I make in my life both good and bad.

Last Wednesday night I made my first appearance at a class party, bearing in mind I am in my final year, this is terrible I know!!!!But something I don’t regret, despite one of my class mates accidently knocking me over… banging my head off a curb, visit to A&E, diagnoses concussion. You know you’ve reached an all time low (and perhaps the ultimate punishment for never attending a class party till now) when you spend Sunday evening in the company of the injured and lame of cork,  not to mention the odd drunk who unable to walk had to be physically lifted on to a trolley in order to gain admission. Maybe this was a strategic move because he got treated before those who had been waiting for up to ten hours.

 The question I asked myself while waiting in A&E was “had I made the right decision avoiding the class parties all those years?”