Mystery pie

I don't understand it. I keep a conscientious list of the contents of our freezer, adding when we gain food, crossing out when we've eaten it. We've just got on to a new month.

Leaving my list in the kitchen, I go to the freezer in the laundry room to move the relevant food up to the top of the pile, so it will be easy to find. According to my list there should be a bag of bacon, some haddock, some cooked chicken, some leftover stuffing & some lamb.

First I find the haddock. At the bottom, of course. Then the chicken & stuffing. All's going well.

My first problem is that I find two big bags, not the one I expected, full of little bags of bacon apparently of the same vintage. I go back for the list to check there isn't supposed to be a bag of the same month but of a different vintage. No. For Saturday's meal I take out a small bag from one big bag & hope I've hit the right bag. We've obviously got a lot of bacon ahead of us to eat all this lot up!

Next problem, the lamb. I get it into my head I'm looking for cooked lamb. Can I find it? No. Instead I find a couple of bags without labels. They must have come off. One bag is still labelled cooked lamb but no date. It's an unusual quantity. I return again to my list. I manage to find that. The other bag is definitely cooked red meat of some sort & 8oz but that's all I know. I decide it must be the cooked lamb I should have used up a while ago. I label it as such to go back to the freezer & find I'm putting it on top of a bag already labelled the same way as this one. In which case what is this bag? No idea.

So today, we're having mystery pie. I conclude whatever vintage this mystery bag, whatever variety of left over meat it is, it needs to be used up & soon. So today we're having shepherd's pie I think, though it may turn out to be a cottage pie. Either way it will be used up & eaten.

As for the lamb I was seeking, that turned out to be minced lamb. Once I realised I was looking for mince, it was quickly found.

What I can't understand is how things got so muddled. It seems I've still got another 8oz bag of cooked lamb of an earlier vintage to use up & an awful lot of bacon. So much for my efficiency!