Wait, is this Coke expired? Yes... yes it is.

It's time for a much needed Spring cleaning in the storage room (we're a little late on the 'spring' part). Tackling this racquetball court of crap was an all-morning job, but we finally sorted the boxes of condoms, lube, dental dams, and t-shirts into their appropriate piles. Although it still looks like piles of junk, at least now everything is nestled into little corners of organization.

Then again, a neat pile is still a pile.

Regrettably, 90% of our Coke stockpile is expired. Rather, it expired back in February around the same time as our late night event for which the product was originally intended. But we got the Coke through a request from Campus Activities, and they have a "deal" with Coke, right? Did they give us expired product?



In a word: Yes. Yes the Coke expired the same month we got it. Should I be so shocked? I don't work in event planning, but I hear this is a pretty typical move for getting rid of about-to-expire beverages. It's pretty harmless, unless you are planning to use the leftovers 6 months later and it's all gone to Flatsville.

Being the eco-friendly grad student that I am, I decided it would be best to personally open every can, pour the Coke down the sink in the janitor's closet, and recycle the cans. I didn't realize that opening cans of pop would turn out to be back-breaking labor, but it was! The janitor's sink was low to the ground, and I had 315 cans to go through in a confined space. I tried several strategies like the hunched-over-multi-pour, and the sit-on-the-floor-two-handed-pour. No matter how I tried to improve my efficiency, I always ended up in a position that strained my back and legs.

After an hour and ten minutes the task was complete, and I gave Mother Nature a big sarcastic "You're Welcome!"

What I learned: There's no such thing as free Coke, and when it's free it's probably expired. Also, wearing jeans to work makes manual labor totally worth it!