It’s Sunday morning and I’ve had a couple of cups of coffee and watched a few YouTube videos in the living room. I’ve cut back on the amount of wine I drink in the evenings and, consequently, the amount of snacking I do before bed at night. Naturally, I’m pretty hungry in the morning now, more than usual, presumably because I’m consuming less calories before bed.

As the one or two quasi-regular readers of this blog might be aware, I’ve been on a spicy oatmeal kick for the past couple of months, but I’m getting a little bored of it. In search of some something different to throw in my oatmeal, I open the Lazy Susan spice cupboard and begin to spin the carousel.

I’m not much of a cook, so most of the spices and seasonings in this cupboard don’t mean much to me taste-wise. I’m not familiar enough with them to know what they taste or smell like individually and so picking one or two to throw in my oatmeal is a bit of a gamble.

One of those items is a jar of poppy seeds. The first thing that pops into my mind is “everything bagel”, which seems like a good breakfast item. When I popped the lid, I noticed the seeds were clumped together in an odd way. I don’t know if this is normal behavior for poppy seeds, but it prompted me to check the “best by” date on the label.

“BEST IF USED BY SEPT 2002”

I did one of those classic double-takes. Yup, these seeds “expired” 23 years ago — before Kim and I even began dating.

I showed them to Kim later in the morning. She said she used them to sprinkle over braided bread waaaay back in the day. 2002 was the year I started working at ATX Forms. I met Kim as she was leaving for maternity leave to have Marcus — who I would adopt a decade later.

What’s more, it means these seeds came with us when we moved from her house on York Street to our current home by the river six years later in 2008.

I guess it’s time to clean out the ole’ spice cupboard.