Reminder: Your milk or your Mastercard's about to expire

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

The world is too much with me. Or too little.

It's out of control. Or I'm out of control. I can't figure which.

It's the small things that are getting to me. Like the sticker on the license plate of my car.

"Do you realize your car isn't registered?" a friend asked the other day. It's registered, I assured him. I mailed the check months ago.

"Then why does your sticker say `Feb 93?' "

Why? Who knows why. The car drives, doesn't it? The radio works. What difference does it make what the sticker says?

"It makes a difference, if you're in an accident," my friend continued. "If you're not registered you're not insured."

I wasn't - for six, whole weeks. And I didn't even know.

The check was mailed to our insurance agent on Feb. 1. He received it, stamped it, and sent it to the Registry on Feb. 9. But then it disappeared. The Registry never got it. The insurance agent never got it back. So where is it? Where do things like this disappear to?

I once mailed a tape of "Phantom of the Opera" to a friend in New York and that also vanished. A manila envelope full of letters sent from the Herald to my home never arrived. How come?

And how come the Registry, of all places, isn't on top of things like expired registrations? Why didn't it send a notice, like the gas company does: Just a friendly reminder: Pay up or else.

At the very least, it should deal in stickers that flash or beep or do something when they're close to expiring.Smoke alarms make annoying cricket sounds when it's time to change their batteries. Ordinary watches buzz on the hour every hour, simply to remind you that your life is slipping by. Why can't registration stickers be made to beep or ping or sing like a Hallmark greeting card when their time is running out?

Registration stickers and inspection stickers and those tiny, clear things that Jiffy-Lube glues to your window so you'll know when to change your oil again, need to hum or growl, because, let's face it, who ever looks at them? You'd never get out of your driveway if all you did was focus on what was expired and what was not. You'd never get out of your house. You'd be checking things all the time.

Checking your cards: Mobil, Triple-A, Costco, Mass. license, Delta Crown Room, MasterCard, U.S. Video Membership Card, Waldenbooks Preferred Reader Card, bank card.

Checking your coupons. Tide? Expired. Golden Grahams? Still good. Friskies? Good. Chew-Eez? Good for one more day. Ten percent off Frilzz. No expiration date. Tex-Mex Cafe $5 off. Expires 6-1-93.

Checking your magazine subscriptions: Send this card NOW! if you want to continue receiving Newsweek, Life, People, Sassy.

Checking the food in the cabinets. Croutons, Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, Corn Flakes, cake mixes, Campbell's soups, all with expiration dates.

Checking the food in the refrigerator: mayonnaise, eggs, milk, cheese, sour cream, bologna, light cream, cream cheese.

And the stuff in the medicine cabinet: The aspirin expires in June; the Tylenol next March. The cough syrup expired last November - no wonder it didn't work. Even the dog's heartworm pills are dated

Who has time for all this checking? It's too much for any one human being. Add to all this, the zillions of other things we're supposed to remember to do - weekly, monthly, yearly - and it's no wonder we don't know what day it is.

Physical exams, mammograms, eye exams - once a year. Dental exams twice a year, but every four months if you have lots of plaque and every other month if you have lots of kids. Allergy shots every six weeks. Library books to return. Tires to rotate. Memberships to renew. Taxes to do. Records to keep. And bills to pay once a month, all due at different times!

It's crazy. The world's crazy. We're all going crazy.

And the worst thing is, for all the stuff we have to do, there are no expiration dates, no much-needed end in sight.