Going Back In Time

Last weekend I helped organize my parent's pantry.  Like most people they have better things to do with their time than weed through boxes of cake mix and rice mixes to see what's expired and to generally organize the remaining contents.  Lucky for them I don't have better things to do with my time and I could give the husband in "Sleeping with the Enemy" a run for his money.  Remember he makes Julia Roberts organize the cans of soup precisely and hang the bathroom towels so they are perfectly aligned...yup, that's me.

There were a few fun surprises and they had nothing to do with the food in the pantry.  The first was the discovery of an address book hidden was in the back.  For kicks I opened it up to my name and saw a State Street address.  I though "oh, wow...mom has been keeping this up!"  Then I realized it was my old State Street place that I vacated in 1995.  I gave it to my mom and she found listings for people that she had no idea who they were...no idea.

Then I came across a stack of about a dozen envelopes that were all labeled, with a label maker such things as "cereal", "juice" etc.  Now, the first thing that strike me is hilarious is that my mother would never, ever have used a label maker on anything.  That sort of organized approach just doesn't exist.  She swears she never had a label maker.  The envelopes contained coupons.  These coupons all had expiration dates of 1989.  Some have no expiration date.  I was really tempted to walk into Hannaford and check out with a stack of them.  Just to see the cashier reaction.  Except I would probably either get a cashier with no sense of humor or just a plain stupid one who wouldn't even get the joke.  Some of the products were pretty funny.  There was Micro Rave Brownie Mix and Suzi Wan Rice Mix.  In fact, there was an entire envelope marked "Suzi Wan".  Who knew. 

I wish I had taken some pictures but I usually only think of that days later when it's too late.  I'm happy to say that 4 trash bags later the pantry looks pretty good.  For another 20+ years...


UPDATE:  Mom did take pics.  I'm late in posting them but it truly is scary how perfectly aligned those cans of soup are...as I said before it's very "Sleeping with the Enemy".  Just another reason I'm single :)