The Magical Pepperoni

My teenage daughter volunteered to make some supper for the kids tonight. I think she picked up on my non-verbal cue of sitting there totally ignoring the fact that it was suppertime.

Anyway, she considered making little mini pizzas using English Muffins. She didn't end up doing that, but that's not consequential to our story.

So, as she was scoping out potential ingredients, she noted in the crisper... a stick of pepperoni.

"Hey," she says, "there's some pepperoni in here we could use."

I feel compelled to interject.

"Um, I don't know about that. I bought that pepperoni for your mother's birthday party back in June."

She checks the 'best before' date on the pepperoni, which is August. 2006, of course. She also asks why we would still have such a thing in our refrigerator.

I don't know what to tell her.

Should I tell her that I am amazed that the pepperoni, still sealed in plastic, looks perfectly good? That it's got so many preservatives that it might still be edible a year from now? That I just can't manage to open it and risk eating it, yet I also can't bring myself to dispose of it?

So here I am, typing this post with the pepperoni stick next to the computer. For inspiration I guess.

It really does still look perfectly good.

Maybe it's magic.

I don't want to mess up our karma. I think I'll just go put it back in the fridge now.