Though much has changed over the last seven years of one funny Philadelphia woman’s life, one constant has remained: the tub of pineapple-flavored cottage cheese she keeps in an office fridge at the company she’s worked for since 2012.
The cheesy snack has become something of an accidental, hilarious legend among colleagues and – for better or worse – has not been opened since the fateful day it was brought in.
“Happy Anniversary to this lil tub of pineapple cottage cheese — it has now survived SEVEN years in our work fridge without being thrown out! I take a picture with it each year,” Julia Giacoboni captioned a photo montage shared to Reddit on Sept. 18, in a post that has since gone massively viral with over 62,000 upvotes to date.
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In the seven-part photo collage, Giacoboni was all smiles as she proudly displayed the container of Crowley nonfat pineapple cottage cheese. Though she’s rocked a few different hairstyles and toyed with wearing glasses through the years, her love for the kooky item and the special tradition has never waned.
In honor of her photo going so far and wide, Giacoboni spoke to the New York Post, explaining that she brought in the tub of cottage cheese for lunch soon after she started working at an advertising agency in 2012.
Just two bites in, however, she decided that the snack was not for her.
“I hated the taste of it. It tasted fake,” the 32-year-old woman said.
Instead of tossing it, Giacoboni closed the container and returned it to the community fridge, where it eventually got pushed to the back and was forgotten about,
One year later, miraculously, Giacoboni and her coworkers found the aging cottage cheese, “realized how long it’d been there and looked at the expiration date and thought it’d be funny to take a picture with it,” she told CTV News.
Now, Giacoboni’s yearly pictures with cheese have become a “favorite anniversary” tradition. Though employees regularly clean out the company fridges, the special cottage cheese is allowed to stay.
Remarkably, the item even made the move when the ad agency switched offices in Philly.
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“Everyone thought it was funny. We clean the fridge but we leave it in there,” she explained. “So now it has notes on it … it hasn’t swelled up or anything. It looks totally normal on the outside. And it doesn’t smell.”
Though Giacoboni admits much has changed in her life since 2012 – from taking on new roles at work to dating a new boyfriend, buying a house and adopting a cat – she said that the cottage cheese is definitely here to stay.
“Now, I feel like I have to see just how long I can keep it,” she told CTV News.
Redditors, meanwhile, were largely delighted with the cottage cheese’s weird history and the annual tradition. Some declared that the cheese must have supernatural powers to survive so long, while others moaned that the diet-friendly item had outlasted other important things in their own personal lives.
“On the 7th year, it became sentient. On the eighth year it took a selfie,” one joked of the product.
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“I'm depressed to think that a container of cottage cheese lasted longer at a company than I ever did,” someone claimed.
“A container of cottage cheese lasted longer than both of my marriages combined,” another user wrote back. “Lets be sad together!”
According to Eat by Date, unopened cottage cheese lasts between 7 to 10 days in the refrigerator.