Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Joy of Excess

So much going on, it's tough to figure out where to start. Well, I promised Ricardo that I would post a picture so here it is.



This is one of several Cicada Killer Wasps that were buzzing around my front yard while I was on the phone with Ricardo. Two of them even slammed into my window! Though I've written about them before, I still find them intriguing to watch as they seem so nasty and scary looking. It must be summer!




This afternoon I needed to get some grocery shopping done, so I headed over to my local Jewel. On the way, I passed my video store ("Flicks") run by the sole proprietor, Carlos, who used to be an employee at the store previously but bought out the owner. Unfortunately he had a big sign up saying he was going out of business. Very sad. He's a nice guy to have in the neighborhood and is quite friendly and willing to joke around. PLUS, he's the only nearby video store. Damnit. The Redbox station at the Jewel usually has decent movies.....guess I'll just have to go there.

Finally, I made it to Jewel after a long discussion with Carlos (and I bought the 4th season of The Office from him for $12 along with 40 year old virgin and Young Frankenstein for $7 each). One of the items on my list was milk. Big deal. Well, I got to the milk refrigerators and they have the different sizes: the Chugs (which are a quart I think), half gallon and gallon. Nothing special about that either, though I've been buying the Chugs lately so I can finish the milk before it turns (I hate waste). Oddly though, the gallon is priced at $2.39 and the half gallon is $2.69. Whaaaat?? How can this be? Guess they just wanted to move milk in large quantities. The expiration date was LATER on the gallon as well!

So here I am with a dilemma: do I buy the gallon of milk which I KNOW I can't finish before it goes bad or do I pay more for less? What would you do?

6 comments:

terri said...

I'd buy the gallon. I'd rather spend less money and figure out a way to drink more milk (come on... you can do it!) or just throw the excess away. You could pour the unused stuff in a garden or something. Call it compost. See that? You didn't waste it. You recycled it.

alexis said...

sorry my brain fritzed out at the concept of being able to buy more than a liter of milk at a time - impossible! only tiny amounts are available in the NL

stef said...

I'd go for the gallon. There are so many things you could do with milk! Use it for fried chicken or baking of course. Make a creamy soup. Or you could give the extra to a neighbor that has kids.

el supremo de nm said...

Actually you can freeze milk. So I'd buy some freezer containers, buy the gallon and then freeze the surplus :)

I'd also promptly forget about the frozen milk until many years later when I'd finally get around to cleaning the ancient stuff out of my freezer :(

DogBrian said...

So sad to hear about Carlos' store. With regards to the "Milk" question..hahahahhaha. I'm laughing to much to respond.

Lakeview Coffee Joe said...

Stef, can you imagine me showing up at a neighbor's house with a quart of milk saying, "Hey, I have this extra milk. Want it?" Who would take it?? Especially from me! :-)

Freeze milk? Really? Nice ESDNM, maybe I'll do that.

Milk compost? Really? Yech. That doesn't sound like it has a good ending Terri. I'll take your word for it though because Doris Day wouldn't steer me wrong! :-)