The Food of the Future

               So lately I've been really interested in the expiration dates of food.
               See, in the book I've been writing for NaNoWriMo- 45,737 words! - I gave my characters a storeroom of military rations and canned food, still full five years after a zombie apocalypse. And because I'm a crazy person, I only want food in there that will have stayed "fresh" in five years' time. So if you look up what I've been googling, along with other strange queries for the sake of my story, you'd mostly find "How long does canned corn last?" and "Expiration date for spam."
               But today, I got a Little Debbie cupcake out of the back of my pantry. And out of my newly formed habit, I checked the expiration date on the wrapper.
               It said:
               DEC 05 00
               I got very excited, and felt an urge to go around and show the nearest person, because in my mind, there were only four possible explanations for this:
               Number One: There was a misprint. 
               But how boring would that be? Eliminated.
               Number Two: That cupcake had been in my cupboard for almost a decade. 
               As tasting proved this to be false, this was eliminated.
               Number Three: That cupcake was from the future, where its expiration date really was the fifth of December, year 3000. 
               But further exploration of my pantry, and several failed attempts at sending various snack cakes 900 years into the future, proved, sadly, that my cupboard is indeed not a functioning time machine. One could argue that it only sends things back in time, to precisely this year, but that would just be getting silly. Eliminated.


               So all that was left was my final theory.


               Number Four: December 5th, 3000, was the cupcake's real expiration date. 
               That cupcake would still be fresh and tasty in 900 years. As my scientific testing had proven all other possibilities false, then this shall be taken as the truth. I had the world's longest lasting cupcake in my hands!


               Unfortunately, I was hungry, and the magical cupcake was eaten, so this will never be truly proven correct.
               But neither will it be proven false! Ha ha!


               So what came of this? Well, I will forever be telling my grandchildren of the time their grandma found the world's most amazing snack cake.
               And it served as a worthy procrastination tool to delay the writing of my NaNoWriMo story, where, obviously, all of my main characters will now be eating Little Debbie's. Because I want my book to stay true to the facts.


               I really need to get back to writing.