tiredNow the present diatribe concerns not one but three pounds of strawberries which J picked up on a whim on Saturday. I allowed this because her parents were due to visit the next day. However, Sunday came and went (and so did our visitors), and the strawberries remained untouched. They would still be there now if I hadn't got up and deliberately opened a packet. (The strawberries, not the visitors, you understand.)
Well this time it wasn't our fault: the cartons all said "display until 23 Jun" and one of them said "use by 24 Jun", so they should have still been OK. But they were furry. Very furry, in the case of one of the cartons (coincidentally, the one that said 24 Jun). We ate some Carte D'or ice cream instead, as consolation.
It's not the fact that I wanted to eat some strawberries and couldn't that distresses me: in fact I could quite happily go for years without one. No, it's the effort we go to to choose the right Multisavers in order to shave a few pence off the price, when we can spend a fiver on something that's just going to get thrown away.
This is where being an MDG-owner comes in handy. Tesco is 5 minutes' drive away and is open 24 hours. I wouldn't have even dreamed of cycling there at this time of night. So off to Tesco I went in our shiny new Saxo, and I demanded a refund because the strawberries were quite clearly still in-date. OK, I didn't actually "demand" anything - I stood and pointed. Or something. Anyway, it was touch-and-go at first, but eventually a nice lady gave me a refund and apologised for the inconvenience. In celebration I went round the supermarket and (re-)bought one new carton of strawberries, some cream, and three toffee-flavoured Ski yoghurts.
So I got home, put everything in the fridge, and discovered that two of the three yoghurts I had just bought said "use by 20 Jun"!
Well sod it. I've eaten one of them. At least it wasn't furry.