I'm Eating Three-Month-Old Eggs

OK, so I din't say this yesterday (Tuesday), but on Monday night, after eating the next in a long, long series of egg sandwiches, I got sick.  I felt a burning sensation down my throat and my mouth began to water unduly.  That's food poisoning, isn't it?

Before I cracked the eggs I looked up on the Internet ways to tell an egg has gone bad.  Again.  There's the float test, which some say is a no-brainer way to figure out if an egg has spoiled, and others say is not.  All the eggs that I have eaten so far have stood on their ends, meaning that they're still good, but on their last legs.  Eggs on their last legs -- I had to say that.

Anyway, I was still suspicious, so there's the shake test.  And that's where I get freaked out, because nearly every egg I ate started to slosh around when I started shaking them.  Except for one website, I do not know whether or not I was supposed to "gently" shake it (which is what this website says I should do) or just shake it like a Polaroid picture.  So if the insides of an egg largely stayed still when I, like, waved it back and forth, it's OK?

Well, I started throwing those eggs in the trash, but at some point (and this may sound ridiculous, forgive me) I got tired of throwing out all these eggs.  So, just out of exhaustion, I cracked one of these loose, liquid-sounding eggs into the bowl.  I remembered when I looked at signs for how eggs go bad in the past (not this time around) that if the yoke looks really gross and it smells like sulfur, then it's really, really bad.  The sites I saw all said those two signs are obvious, and it is at that point that you definitely know you should throw them out.  Well, under that standard, all of the eggs are good.  But that can't be right, right?

Well, there is another way to check whether or not an egg is rotten.  I just learned this, by the way.  Stamped at the side of every egg are these codes.  One of them is a three-digit code called the Pack Date.  That Pack Date is numbered 001 to 365, which, of course, denotes all the dates of the Julian Calendar.  The United States Department of Agriculture says that eggs are good four-to-five weeks beyond the Pack Date.

So I look at the carton.  At this point I threw away so many eggs I went to the second carton of eggs that My Father stored in the fridge.  It says 146, which, according to this private site that constructed the "conversion" chart, is May 26.

So the Pack Date's May 26.  Which means it's good to, what, late June?  Independence Day?

So I'm eating three-month-old eggs.  Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

But you know what?  There are more eggs in the fridge downstairs.  I think there might be a dozen cartons.  Father probably bought them all at the same time.  He likes his eggs and eats them as a late-night snack, but goddamn, these are three months old!!!  (Possible counterpoint: There is a Chinese delicacy called the hundred-year egg, and even if those eggs are technically preserved up to several months, that's a hell of a lot longer than the eggs that I currently have in the house.  My Father was probably thinking, "Hey, I've eaten century eggs before; what's an egg that's been laying around for weeks, huh?")  So what am I supposed to do, throw them all away?  I feel like such a dolt, but I can't.  Besides, hey, they're not floating, the yokes are still yellow and they don't smell.  So what's the problem?  Oh, and BTW, one site says that you can still eat eggs even if they do float -- what the hell am I supposed to do with all this conflicting information?!?!?!

The good news is is that I haven't felt those symptoms since.  For example, I ate an egg sandwich last (Wednesday) night and I feel fine.  And, to admit, it was unseasonably cold and rainy Monday, so that may have been the reason I felt so sick.  But knowing that I have upwards of 150 eggs just waiting to be eaten, man, I am playing with fire here.