TLDR: Karen complains the icing was knocked off her completely free cake.

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The cast of characters: Me = me, R = the office manager at my office, Karen = Karen

I spend Thursday mornings working at the food bank helping distribute food. Each Thursday, the FB gets a ton to 3 tons of food to hand out, all free. Breads, desserts, meat, vegetables and more. The boss has blessed this work and lets me take the morning off and it still counts toward work.

People can get 2 boxes of food. Depending on what comes from the regional warehouse, each box of food is 25-$50 and occasionally a lot more. Some people have gone home with a pack of lobsters, a whole Boston Butt, whole turkeys, hams, pack of scallops and such. We even have toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, hair color, vitamins, pet food and non alcoholic mixers for drinks. Except for the booze, if you can get it in a big grocery store, we will get it eventually.

100% free. No ID, no paperwork. We even load it into the vehicle.

The FB has a crew of volunteers that start showing up at 8 a.m. to prepare and sort boxes. We sort through the stuff and toss anything bad. We toss a good bit of fresh produce, some moldy bread, packages that are broken open, damaged cans, etc. Produce and bread goes to feed a volunteer's hogs and some horses. Other bread goes to feed chickens several volunteers have.

Every now & then something will slip through. We toss more stuff that is good than let bad stuff through. If in doubt, throw it out.

It is important to note here that my county has about 8,800 people in it and 98% of the people over the age of 18 know who I am unless they are deliberately avoiding contact with the outside world. I am not exaggerating. Also, I speak to every driver who comes up; I direct traffic during distribution.

After a recent Thursday, the phone rings at the office. R catches the call.

She listens to Karen for a minute and says, "You need to talk to [me]."

Before handing the call over, R says Karen is complaining she got some "expired meat." Uh, yeah. 80% of the stuff is past the sell-by date. Still perfectly good. I eat some of it, low carb bread, a salmon fillet now & then, mayo, hot sauce, anchovies (LOTS of anchovies) and every great once in a while, a pack of meat that was torn open. We do not give away the opened meat, but it is still good. (Chicken feet make great dog snacks, BTW.)

The meat is also frozen. Frozen meat, that is past the sell-by date, is still perfectly good to eat. Ask a professional nutritionist.

"Hi, this is [me]. What can I do for you?"

Karen: "I don't know if this is a [matter that deserves public attention]. We need to feed our seniors and that is good. But you need to know they are giving out expired food." She did not say meat.

Me: "Well, we try to sort the food out. We throw away anything that is damaged. Also, I eat it."

Karen: "Well I have 5 children and 7 grandchildren. I got a cake that all the icing was knocked off. Don't you think that is damaged?" The cake probably had a huge "DISCOUNT" sticker on it and sell by date within the past 7 days.

Me: "You can eat cake without icing. I have." WTF. Her children and grandkids won't eat a cake without icing?

Important note here: Each Thursday I do a live video from the FB. I say what we have, what the truck is probably bringing and I point out everyone is a volunteer. I ask for help. I literally say, "If you can carry a bag of potato chips, you can help." Truth. We put chip bags in the boxes too. No heavy lifting whatsoever. Every time someone complains ( a few dozens so far) about what is in their box, I ask for them to come help sort food on Thursday. Precisely 2 people have shown up to help. One has kept coming back.

Karen: {sputters} Well, you just don't care."

Me: "No ma'am, we care. You are welcome to come help us sort the food to make sure nothing bad gets distributed."

Karen: [CLICK]