Wonderbread and propane tanks

As I was helping some friends clean out their kitchen the other day, we stumbled upon a 3/4 loaf of Wonderbread (tm). Unsure as to whether the bread was bad or not my friend John looked at the package and it had a warning, "Best if used by date printed on bag." Naturally he spent 20 seconds looking over the bag of bread for the date. Andy and I, wondering what the hell he was doing walked over from loading the dishwasher and began to assist looking for the date on the bag. This was 3 college educated young men with decent jobs looking for this printed date, refusing to just open the bag and take out a piece of bread. We spent about 5 minutes looking for the date, after which we resigned to the fact that there was no printed date on the bag of bread and we just threw it out. Obviously the bag was indicating one of three things; the bag was not stamped with a date, the bag was stamped with the date and it meant to tell us that this loaf of bread would be good till the end of time, or we were just so dumb that we managed to not see the date with three people looking at it. I personally like the infinity bread theory.

This lead to think about some things about my life. I don't keep much perishable food besides fresh fruit and vegetables. I have no bread in my house because I don't consume bread fast enough to warrant having it, same thing with milk. Faced with needing a glass of milk I am far more likely to steal it from a roommate then going to the store to buy a 1/2 gallon of milk. Even if I went to the store, I wouldn't purchase a 1/2 gallon, I would purchase a full gallon of milk figuring I would use it later and then 75% of it would go bad. This lead me to wish that I could purchase a 1/4 loaf of bread. Maybe such a commodity is out there, I haven't really looked. I know that I consume bread at a very slow rate and that buying a full loaf of bread is likely to result in most of it going to waste. Here's the problem, I can buy milk in smaller quantities and yet I never do, instead if I buy milk I let the majority of a gallon go to waste. So if I was given the option to buy a smaller quantity of bread, would I do the same thing...

Which brings me to my next point (wonderful transition). I was sitting outside a 7-11 waiting for some people the other day when I noticed a large sign on the front of the store. It read in big red letters, "No Propane Tanks Allowed in the Store!" The 7-11 didn't sell propane tanks, there was not a propane storage place within eyesight of the 7-11, and yet here was this very prominent sign forbidding the entrance of propane tanks. I would have thought that it went without saying that you shouldn't just bring a propane tank into a store with you, apparently that is not the case. One has to wonder exactly what kind of incident occurred, where the manager felt the need to insist that people keep their propane outside. Is the manager racist against propane users? Preferring the comfort of charcoal? Was the manager bitten by a propane tank as a young child? Or is there something far more tragic and sinister regarding 7-11 and it's relationship to propane tanks?

It makes me wish I owned my own store, so that I could post signs that forbid unlikely things. "No paperclips shall be worn above the shoulders." "Raccoons must be kept on a barbed leash at all times." "All red bricks must show valid I.D. before purchasing baked goods." I would keep putting up new signs just to keep people guessing. Either that or I could be like that guy in prison who files frivilous law suits...