Lettuce, eggs expire in Weaver's fridge

Whenever I go out to the grocery store, inevitably, salad mix and a dozen eggs find their way into my cart.

"There goes my money," I sigh to myself.

I always make these purchases with the best of intentions. I really do resolve to sit down and eat a salad before dinner, or use the eggs in whatever box of cake mix I happen to have residing in my cupboards at the moment.

(Right now, it's a white cake mix, but I'm a little intimidated by the prospect of having to separate yolk from white.)

Besides, one never knows when one is going to wake up some weekend morning with the sudden urge to make heaps and heaps of blueberry pancakes.

In the case of such an emergency, I really do want to keep eggs on hand, so I can make pancakes right now, as opposed to "after I run out to the store and get eggs, plus 10 other things I'm going to suddenly remember I need while I'm there," when I'm so tired from lugging in sacks I nuke a can full of soup and call it good.

Alas, inevitably, despite my attempts to rouse myself to the heights of gourmet chef, it doesn't happen. Work runs long, or I get swept up in my obligations at home (not too much longer until "The Office" is back on TV!) and it just doesn't get done.

Or I had salad already twice this week, and now the prospect isn't so thrilling, seeing as how I ran out of black olives yesterday or I neglected to get more of the dressing I like, and the only other dressing in the door to my fridge has been there for a period of time short enough and yet long enough to make me question its edibility.

So the eggs and the lettuce go forgotten, replaced by other, more glamorous culinary delights like pizza (It's not delivery! Oh wait, yes it is!), my world-famous salmon with huckleberry vinaigrette or chili.

It's only after dinner the thought vaguely occurs to me, "Huh, I probably could have had a salad with that … Oh well, I've got ice cream."

Ice cream, ironically, has virtually no shelf life in my bachelor pad. Nor pizza. Nor pizza toppings. Nor milk.

But lettuce and eggs last a little while. I think because they are less flashy, until they become flashy, which is a bad thing, because then it means we're past the point of no return.

Every one should know how to tell if an uncooked egg has gone bad - it stands on its end underwater instead of rising to the surface - but no one should have to test their eggs with the regularity I seem to have.

I need to come up with several recipes which recognize my weakness, and turn it into my strength. Literal egg salad, perhaps? A BLSET? (Bacon, Lettuce, Scrambled Eggs and Tomatoes, for those intrigued enough by the acronyms to contemplate their own kitchen cupboards.) Salad Mix Pound Cake?

I'm sure there are actual tasty, legitimate recipes out there combining these ingredients - although let's not be so hasty to turn our noses up at the pound cake idea - but, alas, I'm not going to be able to do more research tonight.

I think I feel a pancake urge comin' on …