This weekend I tried buying some eggs from a convenience store/pharmacy (like a CVS or Walgreens). It was a probably a first for me for buying eggs outside of a grocery store.
Some of the egg cartons were labelled "04 11 04" and the others were labelled "10 12 10".
I could not parse what this meant. It neither looked like an international date (e.g., day month year) nor a domestic date (e.g., month day year).
I figured I was just confused and so I went to ask the cashier.
Steve: I having a hard time determining the date of freshness on these eggs. Any ideas?
Cashier: Date?
Steve: Yeah. The side of this box has a stamp here, but it doesn’t look like a date stamp at all to me. I also looked inside to see if there was a stamp on the eggs … but nothing …
Cashier: Date? What kind of date would be on eggs? (blank look)
Steve: Hmmm. (squinting a bit while sizing up the cashier and deciding what to do ; long pause) …
In the end I got the "10 12 10" eggs. My rationale was that they would probably be healthier for my family than eggs from November 4, 2004. All said, we didn’t have eggs this weekend, and they are still sitting in our refrigerator.