I Can't Change My Mold..no no no no no

My innards are curdling.

My innards are curdling, and a volatile foam is bubbling up my esophagus. I believe my pancreas has begun to swallow itself in a quest for self-preservation. If you listen closely, you can hear its pathetic little shrieks. My mouth is dry; my teeth are sweating. I’m sure it will all be over in moments. Cause of death – expiration by consumption beyond expiration recommendation (i.e., death by mold).

It is all Shane’s fault. Well, his and my mother’s. They find me irresponsibly wasteful because I do not believe in the practice of “eating around the mold.” I find them dreadfully cheap.

“That is a perfectly good biscuit. Just tear off the corner [read – aquamarine, fuzzy spot of death] and eat the good part.”

Were this the appropriate action, food would not come with an expiration date, and gourmet mold would not merely pertain to cheese and antibiotics. In essence, it would just be regular mold. Each time I bring up this important little nugget of truth, they look at each other and roll their eyes. Shane insists that I am ridiculous and pats himself on the back whenever he saves the brown, squishy banana or week old milk from the torment of living a life in vain. That is fine with me as long as he understands that he will be consuming a double portion of ilk because he’s going to have to ingest my serving too. He even brought home a New York Times article supporting his rationale that expiration dates are part of a USDA c-y-a conspiracy. No, I do not care how they do it in other countries. I will only use that information to cross said countries off the “places I’d like to visit without fear of death” list.

Born to a crazy mother. Married to a crazy man. The way things are going, I am liable to be left in the hands of a deranged undertaker with a bountiful supply of expired embalming fluid or crematorial compost heap.

This morning I was starving. All I wanted [read – all I know how to cook] was a fried egg sandwich. I had made peace with the fact that we were out of sliced bread. Shane is overdue on his weekly Costco run. Yes, you read that correctly. Shane makes a weekly Costco run to buy perishable food in bulk. Hear that? It’s those tipsy angels laughing at me again.

My only option was a yummy whole wheat naan pocket. As I pulled the pocket out of the bag, my heart plummeted and my gag reflex soared. There at the very end of my pocket was the tell tale fuzzy dollop of bacteria. My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

By this time, my eggs were already cooking, so I couldn’t turn back. I forewent all rational thought. An egg sandwich simply cannot exist without the sandwich part of the sandwich. So, haz-mat suit ready, I tore off the tainted area and a good deal of its circumference. Many people are not lucky enough to know at what point they truly become their mothers. They just look in the mirror one day, and there she is staring back at them with a crooked smile and a wicked gleam in her eye. I have the date, the time, and the horrid visual on record now.

Fear not. My senses did not take flight entirely. I set the oven on broil to kill off any and all vagrant spores, and I slathered on enough boysenberry jam to camouflage white specks of flour that might be mistaken for burgeoning bacteria.

So here I am…dying a slow, torturous death. Yes, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the queso, pollo Acapulco, and sangria I had last night.

Please donate the remnants of my body to a nonprofit whose mission is to eradicate food-borne illnesses. Also, please see to it that my mother and husband do not receive an iota of my life insurance payout. I wouldn’t want them to be forced to stop pinching pennies at my expense.