The Vintage Question

By Jeff Eckenrode

The sound of light, morning rain tapped gently against the storefront windows when Old Pete found a jar in the back of the storage room. It looked like it hadn't seen daylight since they tore down the old hardware store down the street to make room for a high-rise condominium. 

I was sitting at my desk, littered with empty coffee cups and invoices, rolling a worn half dollar between my fingers when he held it up to me like it might be radioactive. 

"This has gotta be expired," he said, matter of fact-like. "Just look at it. It's basically fossilized!" 

I took the jar. The bud inside had faded from a vibrant green to the color of an old paper bag, dry enough to rustle when I turned it. Pete was already drafting a eulogy for it in his head, the way he does for anything that reminds him time is passing and the shop's gotten too big for him to keep track of everything in it anymore. 

"It's not expired," I said. "It's just old." 

He looked at me blankly. I could quickly tell he didn't see the distinction. Most people don't, probably because nobody labels a jar with a date the way they'd label milk, and everybody assumes there should be one anyway. 

I explained it the way I understood it: cannabis doesn't really have a hard expiration date the way perishable food does. It just degrades, slowly, as THC breaks down over time, usually into something called CBN, especially if it's been sitting somewhere warm or bright or not well sealed. That jar had clearly seen all three. The stuff wasn't dangerous. It just wasn't going to hit the way it used to, more of a tired shrug than a real effect, assuming it wasn't moldy, which he'd have smelled by now if it was. 

Pete turned the jar over like he was looking for a receipt that would settle the argument once and for all. 

"So it's fine?" 

"It's tired," I said. "There's a difference." 

He set it gently on the counter like a museum piece and told Berny the shop had officially made a historical discovery.

Berny, delighted, immediately wanted to know how old it actually was. I didn't ask.

Some questions you let stay a mystery, mostly because I had an Indian Head penny at home whose actual age I still hadn't nailed down either, and I understood the appeal of not knowing.