Suzanne took the last bite of leftover meatloaf and placed her empty plate in the sink.
Thank goodness, she thought, I finally finished that meatloaf. She couldn't remember how long ago she had made it. Being a single elderly woman, she didn't eat much and so working her way through leftovers was her fate.
Full, but not satisfied, she opened the freezer looking for something sweet. She pawed her way through unmarked tupperware bins and mysterious meats wrapped in foil and finally found a half-eaten container of ice cream in the back of the freezer. Bingo. Then she froze. Next to it was clearly another slice of that godforsaken meatloaf.
Her cat, Tinkerbell sauntered into the kitchen.
"You might need to help me finish that meatloaf," Suzanne said to Tinkerbell. "I could have sworn I'd eaten the last slice last week. It's like it's regenerating itself in the freezer." Tinkerbell gave her a supportive meow.
Since she lived alone, Suzanne didn't bother to scoop the ice cream into a separate bowel. She grabbed a spoon and turned on the TV. While she mindlessly scrolled through channels eating ice cream, Tinkerbell curled up beside her and went to sleep.
Suzanne grew up in a generation that didn't believe in wasting anything, let alone food. She scolded her daughters for buying expensive groceries at organic markets and then being too busy to use it all before it spoiled. But Suzanne did get tired of eating leftovers.
She got up and returned the carton to the freezer. It had been quite some time since she had last gone to the market. Maybe she would go tomorrow. After putting away the ice cream she opened the refrigerator. While not overly stocked there was plenty of food to eat. More leftovers. Nope, there was no need to go to the store.
She went back to the sofa and moved the cat so she could lie down while she watched television. The cat readjusted and quickly went back to sleep on top of her legs. Suzanne felt unable to focus on any of the shows that were on. When did I last go to the grocery store, she thought?
Moving the cat again, she went to her purse and looked through it for any recent receipts, but there weren't any. Then she went to her desk and started looking through her most recent credit card statements (no matter what her daughters told her, she wasn't never going to pay her credit card bills online). She looked back one month, two months, three months. She opened a file cabinet with her records from previous years and sat down on the floor, determined to figure out the last time she bought new groceries.
An hour or two later Tinkerbell strode in and sat down up on the pile of credit card statements and began cleaning herself. That's when Suzanne found it.
"Tinkerbell," she said. "I haven't been to Safeway in seven years." She held the credit card statement in front of Tinkerbell's face as if the cat could verify the date. "I knew the leftovers were reproducing themselves!"
