Cockroaches, Keith Richards, and Nestle Milkshakes

This is some scary shit, yo.

I try to eat well, for the most part. There are not very many chemicals that pass my lips anymore, with the exception of an occasional diet Coke and cigarettes. Most of the food I buy are whole foods and if I buy something to be made straight out of box, it is a dark day indeed. Label reading has become a big habit of mine.

(High frutose corn syrup in bread crumbs?! Bugger me sideways.)

However, every once in a while I get a craving for something really trashy. It's rare, but it happens. Usually when my blood sugar is plummeting because I've forgotten to eat all day and my body is screaming out for a quick fix. This happened a few weeks ago and I wound up buying a Nestle chocolate milkshake. Took a few sips from it (checked the label first, no HFCS) and then promptly put it into the fridge because I didn't want the rest of it. Then I forgot about it.

This was...oh, three or so weeks ago.

Tonight, I had my head in the icebox looking for something to make with my dinner and I noticed a yellow bottle in the back. Took it out. Lo and behold, it's the milkshake. The Engineer started to torture me about being able to just put things aside like that. He, of the voracious sweet tooth, will down one of those bad boys in three big gulps and then start eyeing up mine. Me, I've barely got a sweet tooth.

So, I'm standing in my kitchen holding this milkshake and wondering how long it's been in my goddamn fridge. I open it up to pour it out and out of some sick curiousity, take a whiff of it first to see how bad it smells.

Doesn't smell funky at all.

I eye up the inside of the bottle, with the Engineer laughing at me. "It doesn't smell bad at all!" I say to him, shaking the contents around in an attempt to see if anything is chunky. "Should I taste it?"

I peer at it for a few more moments, shake it around again, sniff it some more, then decide that I need to taste it and see if it's gone off. In the interest of scientific exploration, if you will.

Steeling myself for some full-on manky flavor, I tip the bottle to my mouth gingerly, grimacing in sick anticipation.

And?

It tastes exactly the same as the day I bought it.

Too freaking sweet, kind of oddly thick, vaguely reminiscent of real chocolate. In other words: it hasn't gone bad.

This shit has been in my fridge for almost a month. Opened, with a broken seal. And it hasn't gone bad? What the fuck do they make it out of? I fear it. So, what do I do?

Screw the cap back on and put it back in the fridge.

Yes, I'm aware that I have issues.