Expiration Dates, They're Not Just For Sissies.

Our day started at 4:22 this morning. That was when Rocky came to the door of our bedroom and timidly peeked into the darkness. There are only two things that can wake me up during the night: the sound of Olivia crying, and the jingle of Rocky's collar. And early this morning, I heard the jingle at our door and instantly knew that something was wrong. Rocky does not get up during the night unless something is wrong or he is cold. And if he is cold, he curls up on the rug at the foot of our bed and tries to bury himself in the covers that have fallen on the floor. So, I sat up and asked Rocky what he was doing up; he immediately ran to the laundry room door (which was shut) to let me know that he wanted his water. I opened the door for him and watched him lap up water like a camel headed into the desert. Suspicious, I turned on the light in the kitchen, and about that time I was hit by it: The Smell Of Something Seriously Wrong.

At this point, I feel I need to explain something about our family: we (ahem, C) won't eat leftovers that have been in the refrigerator for more than 4 days, but tend to be a bit cavalier about expiration dates. It seems that we (ahem, C) read or heard a story about how those are more guides than rules and to use good sense and your nose when determining if something should be eaten or thrown out. Thus a strange and scary new game of Intestinal Roulette was born.

So when Rocky ran out of dry food late last week, I decided it was high time he ate his canned food before it went bad. It has been in the laundry room for a sweet forever being saved for reasons I have forgotten, and he loves the stuff. Then I saw that the expiration date on the cans was May 2010. I thought I might should just throw it out, but I didn't have anything else to feed him, and the date is just a suggestion, right? And it's only dog food, it's not like it's milk or something. Right? Right. So, Rocky started happily wolfing down his canned food.

That was last Friday. Rocky was at Camp over the weekend because of a last minute trip we made, and when we got home and back to normal on Monday, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. On Tuesday, our neighbors were over visiting Olivia and I kept noticing this terrible smell. I couldn't find a source, though -- it was like it was everywhere, this horrible Fog of Stench (FOS) hanging in the house. I febrezed everything and vacuumed, but the FOS remained. You can probably see where this is going, but sadly, I didn't add it up. Tuesday turned into Wednesday and still the FOS remained.

Back to this morning. The Fog of Stench transformed during the night into The Smell (and Evidence) of Something Seriously Wrong. And I will spare you the details, but let's just say that Rocky's intestinal fortitude held out for almost a week but failed him miserably sometime between 1 and 4 AM. He was so ashamed of himself and had even tried to hide some of the evidence (gag) but at some point I think he realized he was going to have to face the music. Probably around the time he needed water.

The moral of the story, People of the Web, is that if the can says it's best by May 2010, it's really bad in August.