The Rat Takes the Cheese

I made a pot of vegetable beef soup on Saturday. One thing I enjoy with vegetable beef soup is Oberle Cheese. It's a regional thing. A tube of soft garlic cheese, the consistency just a bit firmer than Velveeta. I found it on the back aisle of 10Box. When I was checking the dates, they were all the same. Sell By 02/13/24. Unfortunately, the day I was wanting to buy it was 02/17/24.

If I had this cheese in FRIG II, I would use it a couple weeks past the date, as long as it had no mold, and smelled like it should. But why should I fork out $3.75 (plus 10 percent at the register) to buy expired cheese? 10Box often has displays of recently expired merchandise, marked down to about half price. Since I really wanted that cheese, and it was only four days past the Sell By date, I put it in my cart, intending to ask at the register about the date and price.

Of course there were only two registers open. One with a full cart, and another with the young man checking who had not known what a lime was. I chose his line, figuring I'd just buy the cheese. No way was I going to bring up the date and price with him. 

Lucky for me (but not for her), the older lady who is always so nice to me came by and said she'd check me out at the register on the end. I told her she'd regret it!

"I feel like I can ask you about this cheese that's past the Sell By date. Can I get a discount on that? Probably you're not allowed to bargain with me, but it doesn't hurt to ask."

"I can't. But I can find someone who CAN."

"No. Wait. You don't have to go to that trouble. I want the cheese. I just thought I'd ask, in case I could get a bargain. You don't know until you try, right?"

"Here she is now! Look at this cheese. It's past the date."

"All of them were the same. Probably 10 more back there."

"That's the meat department. I can't change anything. But I'll go ask about it!"

"That's okay. I'll buy it. But you might want to tell them all the cheese has that date."

"I feel bad charging you for this!"

"It's okay. If I had it at home, I'd still use it a couple weeks past the date. Just ring it up. It's fine."

"Oh, no. Now I rang it up twice. I'll have to call someone to void this."

"Just have her get me another pack of the cheese. I'll take two of them."

Off she went, and came back with another cheese and the lady who was consulting the meat department. Meanwhile, the customer who had come up behind me with only one tomato and a bottle of orange juice had snatched her items back, and gone to the young man's line. I hate being that rat who holds up a line. I hope the young man was more familiar with tomatoes than with limes.

"The butcher said this label is wrong. They just came in on the truck this morning, and somebody should have put a new label on it."

"Okay. Thank you for finding that out. I'm so sorry to cause trouble. Next time you see me come in, you'll run the other way!"

"Oh, this is nothing. I already went to the butcher about something else today for another customer. Don't worry about it."

Now that I've put up the picture, I see that on the left, beside KEEP REFRIGERATED, it shows a tiny Sell By date of 04/17/24. Too bad I didn't see it in the store. I could have saved a lot of people some extra effort. Though I bet I wouldn't be the only one to question the larger Sell By date that was past.