Maria left for work the other morning, and I had the house all to myself. As I prepare to start a new job and end my short sabbatical, I wanted to do something special.

So I cooked up some turkey bacon. Actually, I just heated up bacon I had cooked and frozen several weeks ago. I knew I would have time to enjoy the food and get the offending smell out of the house before my wife returned at the end of the day.

Something happened, however, after I chowed down. I still felt like something was missing. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed something else to satisfy me. After a minute or so standing in the kitchen and thinking, I realized the answer.

Orange juice.

We hardly ever have OJ in the house anymore. Basically, we like it so much, we would each have to take out a part-time job to pay for all the OJ we would drink. So we just remove the temptation and suck it up.

This strategy has actually worked. I don’t really crave OJ that much. I manage to get some on the outside once in a while to hold me over.

But I had the biggest hankering for a glass of OJ the other morning with no relief in sight. I hadn’t showered or changed yet so going out really didn’t appeal to me. I thought I would just have to suck it up and let the craving pass.

Then I remembered that I ad seen a can of frozen orange juice in the freezer. I opened the door and immediately spotted it. I could not believe my luck.

I grabbed a pitcher out from one of our cabinets and pulled the lid off the OJ container. I knew I would have to do some serious stirring to mix up the frozen concentrate, but didn’t mind. I felt a rush of excitement knowing that one of my favorite drinks in the world was only a few minutes away.

I can’t pick the precise moment I knew something had gone wrong. Maybe it was how only the middle part of the container still looked frozen. Maybe it was the color of the concentrate. Maybe it was the smell.

As I scooped the orangish crystals into the pitcher, I decided to do something other people may have done before they started making the juice – look at the expiration date.

On the bright side, I got to see what frozen orange juice concentrate looks like when you leave it in the freezer for close to five years. Yup, we were supposed to use this OJ something in 2003, you know, before we automatically linked Martha Stewart’s name with insider trading.

I guess something like a can of frozen orange juice can easily get overlooked. This kind of activity generally does not happen under Maria’s watch. But I’m kind of glad it did this time, even if it did deprive me of the orange juice I wanted so badly. I generally don’t get to perform science experiments at home.

Something inside my brain wouldn’t let me find out what it tasted like, however. I can only risk so much to quench my thirst and learn about science.