Expired

During all-day kitchen cleaning marathons, before tactfully shoving her out the door, my mother would angrily interrupt us to make lists and complain. Her eventual departure freeing us to work, we sorted the contents of our cabinets into piles (trash, keep, trash, trash). As expiration dates dictated these sorting decisions, we would announce the particularly offensive dates, June 2003, November 2001, challenging each other to find one older. Sitting cross-legged amongst the sprawl of our expired foods, one could almost imagine my mother of ten years ago buying this can of gravy, deciding, yes, we definitely need this at home.