What's it gonna do? Go bad?

Funny story about expired food:

Back in my USN days, I served my stint as Wardroom Mess Treasurer. During that time, I was responsible for buying food for all the ship's officers. (We "bought" our food from the ship's supply officer, so it's not like we had much choice as to our menu - same as everyone else on board, but we had to pay for it with our own funds...)

Well, one time I noted some of the cooks putting a box of salad dressing into the wardroom supply closet, and saw the date on the box. This would have been in 1987 or so, and the expiration date on that case of salad dressing bottles was something like 1982 or so.

Now, go to the supermarket and check out the expiration date on salad dressing. I'd bet that since it's now 2006 you might see some 2008 and maybe even 2009 bottles (at least you would have twenty years ago...).

So that case of dressing was old. The bleu cheese dressing had turned from creamy bluish-white to some shade of tan with a slight greenish tinge with chunks of dark brown in it. I never knew an unopened bottle of dressing could go bad and turn that color.

I told the cooks that there was no way we'd accept that salad dressing and that they were to return it to whatever pit of Hell they found it in. They said OK and I left it at that.

Lo and behold, at dinner that night I spot one of those bleu cheese bottles on the table. But as far from where the senior officers and captain sit as possible. I approached one of the cooks about that, and he said the supply officer overrode me and said that we were stuck with it.

So I put that bottle right in front of the Captain's seat.

The cooks weren't happy, but that was one of the few times I ever pulled rank, because I wasn't exactly happy either.

The ship's captain wasn't too happy with the supply officer. After dinner, the supply officer started trying to "reprimand" me for "subverting the order of a superior officer", or something like that, although in this situation there wasn't much he could do. It's not like he could complain to the ship's captain about what I did.

I told the supply officer in no uncertain terms that the ship's wardroom absolutely would not pay for that "food" and that he had to take it back. He said there was no way I could make him take it back since we had already "bought" it.

I said "OK, I'll take care of it", went to the back of the wardroom where the storage closet was, went in, grabbed the case of decade-old salad dressing, and headed for the door - to the weather decks.

That case went right to the bottom of the Atlantic.

So if you ever get attacked by a three-eyed, two-headed shark while you're swimming in the Atlantic Ocean near Charleston, SC you know who to blame.