Expired Bottle and Jar Situation

So today I was poking around in my fridge looking for mustard and I started to wonder about some of the other stuff lurking in there.

Let me say upfront that I'm pretty good about not keeping spoiled food in my fridge. It grosses me out so I'm good with throwing stuff away. I'm at a point where I'll pre-throwout leftovers right away if I know in my heart they'll never be eaten. I don't throw up the mental facade of 'not wasting' by putting it in the fridge for a few days until they qualify for throwoutability.

Anyway, today I'm looking at the fridge door and for whatever reason started to check into all the jars and glass bottles. How long had that stuff been in there? Was it still good? I checked the expiration dates. The cocktail sauce (exp. March 09). The tartar sauce (exp. Dec 08). The olives (exp. Jan 07). The relish (June 07). The jelly (Oct. 08). Etc. I probably had like 8 jars of expired stuff in the door of my fridge. Nothing too crazy like an disgusting 05-- but I did have a exp. July 06 with the hoisin sauce. Sometimes it said Best if Used By or whatever-- but I take that as the same thing as expired.

So--- was I supposed to just throw em all out? They all seemed still ok on some level in a way. Would they really cause ria or pukies if I ate em? Or would they just taste bad? The olives were probably still ok? Right? I wondered if I should taste everything to confirm grossness before throwing em away all willy nil? But realistically I'm not hitting up the 06 hoisin sauce anytime soon. And the idea of eating a smorgasbord of expired condiments doesn't seem like a bright idea.

But this presented a new problem--Was I just gonna toss em all? I'm pretty good about recycling and these were all glass bottles and jars. I couldn't just throw em all in the trash! It'd be a dead giveaway for the garbagemen with the clicky noise in the regular garbage bag when they'd pick it up. I didn't want to get in recyclable trouble. (Btw what happens anyway if you get caught? Do you get a bad person ticket? Does such a ticket or fine even really exist or is it an urban myth?)

But what were the options? Dump out all the glop into a plastic bag and then wash out all the bottles and recycle them? I didn't like the idea of that. And it seemed like alot of work. And what if the garbage bag with all the dumped out glob leaked and I trailed garbage juice through my apartment? Then Roscoe would lick it up and puke? Double mess!

I stared at all the bottles and did the best thing I could think of in the moment. I put them all back. My fridge was sort of looking naked without the stuff in the door anyway. And having stuff in my fridge makes me feel like an actual person. So I decided to just save this as a project for another day.

Anyway, I finally got to the mustard and checked the date. Best if Used By June 09. Y'know what?

It tasted fine.

ok bye!
tOdd

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