Today I started my period, and in the spirit of things looking bloody and red, I opened some new cream that was red and pink on the inside container.

Unfortunately my husband didn’t notice it, and he poured some into his coffee and drank it.

Not sure if it’s dangerous (when I try typing “pink mold” into Google I get pictures of cute pink Hello Kitty cookie molds) so I exchanged it at the store and asked the clerk.

Now, I know she’s not a Professional Moldologist and I didn’t expect her to have an expert opinion. What I expected was maybe a, “Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll call over our manager from the dairy department and ask him.” However – when I exchanged it and asked if it was dangerous – she laughed! Totally not concerned. She looked like she was surprised I even bothered to return it and said:

“It looks like it might be red and pink dye.”

Me: “Yeah… it’s not. It looks nothing like dye. It’s mold. I tried looking it up to see if red and pink was dangerous and couldn’t find any information. Do you know if it’s dangerous?”

Her: “Dangerous? Ha! I don’t know about mold being dangerous. After all, cheese is mold!”

At this point I was livid. I understand that, from her perspective, returning this product is the equivalent of eating meat… which she clearly doesn’t do. Because her brain seemed to have some pieces missing (much like swiss cheese… Ha) I explained to her that cheese actually goes through a process where it’s cultured. For example, blue cheese has blue mold, but I’m betting you’ve never seen pink cheese, have you? And yes, ironically, the mold that we call “cheese” can sometimes grow another type of mold, and that mold isn’t necessarily dangerous. Depending on the mold, you can cut it off and eat the rest of your food! However, you cannot do that to food with red mold or pink mold… because it might be dangerous… even if it’s your beloved cheese.

Anyway, I got the impression she wasn’t 100% appreciative of my lecture regarding the miracle of cheese. She had the same look on her face that I used whenever I would watch Glenn Beck. She stated that she would confirm this information with their dairy guy and that he would give me a call.

Even if Chris doesn’t get sick, I think it’s interesting that I can’t seem to find information about pink/red mold on cream anywhere (even Siri is puzzled) so I will keep you posted on how things turn out!