It’s not like I try to be difficult.

And don’t get me wrong, there’s probably some days in the month when I really wouldn’t mind drinking coffee with curdled chunks in it. Today just wouldn’t be one of them.

I look at the expiration date on the jug and groan. According to the psychics at Dairyland, the milk was scheduled to go off yesterday. That would be one day after the day my husband bought it at the store. I head out to the garage where he’s married to his latest purchase, a circular saw with state-of-the-art laser tracking. He displays his pile of creativity proudly. Who would’ve thought you’d get 4173 toothpicks out of a foot long piece of two-by-four.

“Mark… the milk’s gone off.” I hand him my curdled coffee.

“And you’re telling me this because…” He gives me a soured look.

“Exactly.”

It’s not that I don’t fully appreciate the fact that my husband will brave the hordes at the supermarket to do the weekly shopping. And it’s not that I don’t fully appreciate that most of the time he even gets everything on the list right. But curdled milk in my morning coffee? He’s either purposely passive-aggressive or it’s a clear indication of shopping sabotage.

Let me introduce you to the Expiration Date Debate.

“Did you check the due date?” I ask slowly. Obviously, extra emphasis on the ‘check’ part.

“Ahhh, come on … you know I don’t read the small print.”

I pick up the box from his new power tool. “Uhuh. Well then tell me this, Tim the Tool Man, what’s the blade diameter of your new saw?”

“7 ¼ inch.”

“Maximum bevel angle?”

“54.5 degrees.”

“No load speed?”

My husband looks suspiciously suspicious.

“Five thousand RPM?”

“Ah ha! Don’t read the fine print, eh?” I dump the curdled coffee in the box and stomp back to the kitchen to make myself an herbal tea. Easy for him to say, he drinks his coffee black.

So I ask you this, guys…what part of ‘expiration’ don’t you understand? If this was an isolated incident, I’d be the first to admit I’d have to drink my lumps. But this is an epidemic of much larger proportions- a sickness that has infiltrated the ranks of brothers, fathers, husbands, and sons. I understand that nature has never programmed men to make any date particularly important (My birthday’s in September, Mark…) but what part of ‘due date’ is not perfectly clear?

I think back to episodes of stale bread, moldy yogurt, and blue muffins (and no, they weren’t berry!) and decide if there’s any hope of changing my husband’s shopping habits, I’m going to have to do some research first. Unfortunately, my first Google hit is a recent study from London’s Brunel University that claims shopping habits are directly linked to evolutionary roles.

I scoff at the study’s opening line: “It’s official – men are better shoppers than women”, but read on. According to the 14 country study, females shop or ‘gather’ by searching and comparing alternatives. In contrast, men go ‘straight for the kill’ and in true hunter style, their heart rates even quicken during the moment of purchase.

I give it some thought. According to Dr Charles Dennis, the hunter-gatherer relationship has existed for 98-percent of mankind’s evolutionary lifespan. As lifestyles evolve, we simply adapt our behavior to suit our new environments. Can I really take offense to a million years of evolution?

Ah ha! So I’m having a light-bulb moment… If shopping can be equated with hunting, why wouldn’t men assume that ambushing a jug of milk on the grocery shelf would mean it had to be fresh? Maybe in the back of their evolutionary hunter-style minds, they can even still hear the cow ‘moo’!

I slink back into the garage to humbly take back my lumps.

“Hey babe, sorry about making a scene. I didn’t realize you were hunting. Who am I to argue the implications of your evolutionary roots?”

Nose to the grindstone, Mark’s abandoned the toothpicks and is sawing a legion of wooden spears.

“Scene? What scene?”

I breathe a gracious sigh of relief. Fortunate for me, my husband’s need to hold a grudge has a short expiration date too.