Old people, old food

For old people, there seems to be no expiration date for food. There’s an evil odor that lurks in the refrigerator and in the cupboards here in the apartment of my parents. And I’ve spent much of the past five days trying to locate its precise source. The search is complicated by local laws that require recycling of “compost,” a.k.a. table scraps, collected in two receptacles open to the air, plus a 4-month-old partially eaten wedge of stinky cheese front and center in the fridge. So a dank aura pervades the kitchen, punctuated by bursts of foulness. When I locate something that’s past “sell by” dates, my parents say, “But that’s when it has to be SOLD by, not when it has to be EATEN.” And should I spy actual mold, they respond, “But mold is GOOD for you.” I curse the miracle of penicillin!