Some things we're better off not knowing

Lately I have been very annoyed by my spice cabinet. It is tiny and narrow and jam packed. Every time I cook something, which is frankly not all that often, I have to dig through the entire cabinet. Somehow the spices know that I am coming for them and they go all Anne Frank and hide in the very back. By the time I find what I'm looking for, several avalanches have ensued and bad words may have been uttered. Setting this mess to rights has been in the back of my mind for a while, and earlier today I was (reading a blog? playing games?) on a website that had a banner ad for McCormick Spices, advertising a web page that would tell me exactly how old my spices are.

I made Ron empty all of the spices into a box and lug them to my desk, so right away he knew it was going to be another big night of entertainment. He read off the codes and I entered them into the website, which gave exact creation dates for most of the bottles we have. (Except for the few that aren't McCormick brand, of course.) Here are the results of our research:



If you need a refresher on greater than/less than symbols, the big group over there on the left are all more than ten years old. A surprising number are more than twenty years old. Ron and I have only been married for 15 years, and I brought no spices to the marriage. The grand prize winner was celery salt, which dates from the 60s. I cannot tell you what my husband might have been doing with celery salt in his teens.

The good news is that the spice cabinet will be much less annoying and I will be able to easily find any of my nine remaining seasonings. The bad news is that if you come to my house I will be unable to make you cinnamon toast or anything that includes fennel. And also, my marriage was obviously much spicier in the early years.