No this isn’t a post about rat poison in yogurt. Nor is it a post directly about Siggi’s yogurt.
“So, what do yogurt and rat poison have to do with each other?” you ask.
Funny you should ask. Normally, I would hope nothing. Unless of course you have a frenemy that loves yogurt and who you think would be better off in the next world. But, again no, this post isn’t about offing a former BFFL with warfarin.
We purchased a Siggi’s yogurt the other day to try. Yogurt is yummy, but neither of us like all the artificial stuff that they put in most. Additionally, most yogurts just have too much sugar. It’s not that we are anti-sugar. Too much sweet just doesn’t appeal to us.
This morning, Jodi pulled the Siggi’s Black Cherry yogurt out of the fridge for us to try as we ate our toast and drank our coffee. It was actually very good. It tasted like yogurt and it had a hint of black cherry flavor with just enough sweet.
A conversation ensued about yogurt and it reminded me of a fun story.
Names and places have either been changed and/or omitted to protect the innocent and guilty alike.
Some months ago, Jodi and I were in a publicly available common room using the WiFi. For whatever reason I was curious about what was in the refrigerator and freezer in the kitchen. Nothing interesting was in the fridge. When I opened the freezer there was a small container in the door shelf that had “Rat Poison” handwritten in black marker on the all white lid.
“What in the blazes does someone have rat poison in the freezer for?” I asked Jodi. She had no ready answer. I scratched my head and simply closed the door.
“I’d think there would be some health regulation against that in a public kitchen,” I commented. Jodi simply nodded her head in what I presumed was agreement.
Fast forward a couple of months later. I was having a conversation with someone that also uses the common room. I call this person “Crazy So-and-So.” Yes, I literally use the term “crazy” as part of this person’s name. And, also yes, I use this term endearingly in front of this person.
The conversation was about all manners of things, as most conversations with professional hatters are, though this person has never confessed to being a hatter. And speaking of hatters. Do you know how the term “Mad Hatter” came about? Professional hatters used mercury nitrate to cure the animal skins used to make their hats. So, back to the conversation. Somehow we wound up on the fact that this person makes their own yogurt. The yogurt culture is purchased from somewhere and shipped to them. They typically stored it in their fridge, but after some time they noticed that their yogurt began tasting a little off. Come to find out, the culture was being used past its “typical fridge shelf life” and the recommendation was to store it in a freezer. Well, this person had no freezer immediately available to them.
“I got tired of eating off-tasting yogurt. Since I don’t have a freezer, I started storing it in the freezer in the common room,” this person said.
I thought nothing of it. Yogurt culture in a freezer sound perfectly acceptable to me.
They continued, “It lasts more than twice as long in there so I don’t have to purchase it as often. Since it’s in the common room kitchen, I didn’t want anyone using it or eating it so I wrote rat poison on the lid”
The now LED light bulb went off in me head . . .
“That was you?!? I should have known it was you!” I expressed.
“What are you talking about?” they quipped as if my surprise was completely unwarranted.
“I was rooting around in the fridge and freezer a couple of months ago and ran across a container labeled rat poison. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why someone was storing rat poison in the freezer. Further, if it was rat poison, I’m pretty sure that it’s violating some kind of health code,” I answered.
“I just didn’t want anybody using my yogurt culture.”
“What are the chances that anyone, other than you, would be using yogurt culture around here?”
“I use it, so I figured someone else might and I didn’t want them stealing it. The best way to prevent that is to write rat poison on it. People will leave rat poison alone.”
“You’re not worried about someone throwing it away thinking it shouldn’t be in the freezer?”
“Nope. Hasn’t happened yet. And nobody has used any either.”
And that’s what rat poison and yogurt have in common in my world.