Coming back to Miami Beach is something of a time warp. Oh, I don’t mean running into old friends or visiting old haunts or anything like that. I mean my parents’ apartment.
You know how there’s that moment when you realize that your parents are verging on the edge of doddering? The thing is, my parents are quite young, relatively speaking. They lead this very hip life. My mom is an artist who teaches art at a well-known Florida art school/college. She’s relatively hip and up-to-date. To be honest, I’m frightened by the presets on her car radio (NPR, I expect; the hardcore hip hop was a bit of a shocker). My dad may be retired, but he works as much almost as much as he used to, plays tennis as often as he can, and is a regular at his New York gym.
Which is why I find it so odd that they’re have these–well–old people quirks. It started with Listermint. Adam came out of the guest bathroom and said, “Do you know you have a Listermint that expired in August of 1991?”
My dad: So?
Adam: That’s a little old.
My mom: 1991? That means it was expired when we lived in the old house, and yet we still packed it and moved it into the condo.
My dad: I’m sure it’s still fine.
I moved the Listermint out of the bathroom and onto the shelf of his study as I figured it qualified more as a period piece than toiletry item.
I opened up the medicine cabinet and found more.
Me: There’s a Kaopectate in here with a pull date of 2003. I’m tossing it.
My dad: Don’t you toss that! 2003 is practically new!
Me: But if you get sick, it’s expired!
My dad: I’d rather have that than nothing. Look, you can throw out anything you want with a pull-date before 2000. Don’t throw out anything with a pull date post-2000.
For the record, following this rule, I was still able to throw out a considerable amount of medicine.
But it’s not just the medicine. Adam found four packets of tuna in the cabinet with a pull-date of 2006. I don’t care about any kind of “2000 rule,” they’re gone.
And then there’s the bathroom reading. Currently, in the bathroom, are the following: If you’d like some current events, there’s a Smithsonian magazine from March 2004. Other than that, there’s an edition of Civilization magazine with a headline that screams, “How Not to Starve in 1999!” There’s the book Top 10 of Everything 2002. And a cartoon issue of the New Yorker from December 7 and 14, 1998. One book was in the bathroom for years and I did enjoy reading it, but it’s since migrated to my father’s bathroom. It is a book that highlights all of the idiocies the president has said and done. It’s quite funny. Oh, and the president? George W? Nah. George H.W.? Nuh-uh. Try Reagan. It’s all about Ronald Reagan.
For the record I found a the be-all end all. It’s a prescription. For my sister. In the guest-room dresser. From 1974.
As I’m sitting here my blogging, my father just said to me and Adam: I have something to confess. I retrieved from the trash the Neosporin from 2006.
Me: But we just bought a new Neosporin on it for the rash on Pie.
My dad: I know. But there are multiple bathrooms. We’ll have one in my bathroom and the other in yours. The new one, how many years you got on it?
Adam: I think at least 18 months.
My dad: I hope you got the smallest tube. Because 18 months. That could last till 2012!
By all means, don’t be afraid to come visit my parents. Just don’t get sick. The medicine might send you to the hospital.
(Note: My father read this and said to me, “You write like having expired medicines is such a bad thing!” As I said…)
LOL! I’m reminded of J’s grandma and her stale cheerios. I don’t remember the expiration date, but it was old.
Medicine? That’s nothing. My brother and I like to play that game with my mom’s refrigerator. You win if you find the oldest item. I still have nightmares about the mayo.
I cleaned out my in-laws refrigerator last summer. There was some vacuum-packed smoked salmon from 2003. I showed it to my husband and father-in-law, out in the garage. “Check this out!” I chuckled. My father-in-law told me that he was saving it for a rainy day, and to put it back in the drawer. And he was serious!
My husband keeps old medicine, too. I think he has some Neosporin from 1999. It must be genetic.