Last year was rough. I responded by being extra careful with my health. (Not an unwise choice.) This year I’m feeling a lot better (though far from prefect). A trip I’d been delaying “had to happen”. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I spent what seemed like a million hours hurtling through “who gives a shit” at the “speed of Dodge”. We’re beat. Even the dog is exhausted. (My theory is that anytime I’m not on an airplane or a motorcycle I can travel with the dog; so we do.)
Unexpectedly, the exhaustion and mental strain has a side effect. A bit of the “old Curmudgeon” has emerged. All men secretly think they’re a bad ass just this side of Chuck Norris and I’m no exception. In times before last year I often did crazy shit simply because “why not”?
I’m not saying it’s good. I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s situational. Apparently my road-exhaustion overwhelms my new-ish resolution to take better care of my health. I keep looking at sketchy food and saying; “Fuck it, I’m too tired to pursue a fresh salad or something. I’ll eat that thing right there and see what happens”.
Last week I needed a sip of something to take some medicine. The tapwater wasn’t very tasty so I opened a “fridge of mystery”. It was an adventure. There was unlabeled Tupperware, things wrapped in paper which I couldn’t identify, and something unholy called “oat milk”. I was hoping for a can of Coke or whatever. Instead, I found a half drank bottle of cran-apple juice. It was the best I could do.
New Curmudgeon is supposed to say “oh dear, that’s sketchy” and motivate his ass to the grocery store. It’s not rocket science to buy something in a sealed container. Current Curmudgeon was in a reckless mood. Down the hatch! Later, I realized the juice had an expiration date in January. Oh well. I didn’t notice anything. Cran-apple is pretty harsh, it probably killed any microbes.
Yesterday, I was home (finally!) but completely poleaxed. I made some coffee and opened our own fridge. We had 90% emptied it before the trip but there was an opened bottle of cream. I wanted cream for my coffee. The important part here is that Mrs. Curmudgeon was elsewhere. I was, therefore, unsupervised.
I sniffed it like a drug detecting dog. It seemed fine. I observed it as it poured, sniffing carefully all the way. As far as I could tell it was fine. Why fret over such a small thing? Am I not a harried and mentally fried Curmudgeon? The coffee was delicious. See? Everything was fine.
Three hours later my organs exploded.
I hate that! I just can’t tell. Mrs. Curmudgeon identifies such things by pheromone and therefore never gets caught off guard. As a person who never misses a trick she’ll leave anything in the fridge knowing that only an idiot would eat certain things. I’m just that idiot. Neandertal that I am, a dairy product can have evolved into a new life form and I just can’t detect it. Mentally damaged? Maybe. Insufficient senses? Certainly. Sick all afternoon, definitely. I was meaning to lose weight anyway.
Today, the coffee was fresh and the cream had been replaced by Mrs. Curmudgeon. She wants me to live! It was delicious! I drank it all. I mean the whole damn pot. I’d been craving our house’s coffee. We don’t skimp on coffee grounds and the coffee we make at our house tastes better than anything I ever found on the road.
Several hours later (just now in fact) I was once again… unsupervised. I wanted more coffee. But I didn’t want to waste the grounds for a whole pot. I decided to make an emergency Keurig. Our Keurig has been collecting dust forever. I literally keep it for “urgent coffee emergencies”… including the once in a blue moon need for decaf. In any other situation I’ll percolate in leisure or use the regular coffee maker.
I washed off the dust and found our Tupperware sealed box of K-Cups. Inside the Tupperware was a still unopened box of Death Wish K-Cups. I popped one in the machine. I’m drinking it right now. It tastes OK. Certainly better than the shit I drank while on the road.
However, I just checked the box. It is “best by October 29, 2019″!
2019?!?! Good grief, that really is a Death Wish cup of coffee!
That said, I’m not too worried. Who knows what unnatural things are stashed in a K-Cup? It’s not like there’s a vegetable in there or anything. I’m guessing it’s pure chemical mystery that has nothing to do with actual “food”. It’s likely just as good as the day a factory excreted it onto an assembly line.
Or, maybe in three hours, my organs will explode? I’m kinda’ open to either scenario.
I think it’s time to go on a rampage and throw expired shit out. I need “day zero”… the day when the fridge (and old K-cups) were ruthlessly eradicated. But first, I’m sipping this delicious coffee.
A.C.
Update: Tomorrow, to atone for my sins, I shall percolate a pot of coffee manually. Fresh grounds and a warm flame. I will also bake a loaf of bread. After all that time on the road and eating at McDonalds and similar poisons of modernity, I need to get back on the bandwagon. I shall stop rolling the dice!