Exploring

If ever I acquire a burning desire to go exploring the ancient ruins of some distant continent, I’m going to save my money and instead spend a few days exploring the ancient contents of our freezers and pantry shelves. No expensive travel is involved and it might take as long, be almost as interesting, and contain artifacts nearly as old as those in some Amazonian temple.
Looking for a menu change this morning, I searched the freezer for the bag of waffles that I know I put there a couple of weeks ago…or was it several months ago? Whatever.
I pushed aside the two bags of special pasta sauce from last Christmas…moved the 4 boxes of pie crusts with one missing from each box, then paused for a moment to study the contents of a bag that looked mysteriously like the dressing from Thanksgiving…2008…or was it meatloaf?
When at last I found the frost encased Zip-bag I was seeking, the contents were barely discernable. They were disk-shaped and about the right diameter, but I had to put on my bifocals to be sure I was holding the extra waffles from some previous Sunday breakfast, instead of the bag of hailstones we collected and put in the freezer a few years ago.
It was a memorable breakfast. I don’t recall ever eating waffles that tasted like they had been seasoned with the fragrance of year-old ground turkey, pork roast, pizza, green peppers, ham, and smoked brisket, then dried on the countertop for three days.
I think I’ll have a bowl of fresh-cooked oatmeal tomorrow morning while I read the Sunday travel section in the Tyler paper. Maybe they’ll have an article on exploring the Amazon.