I am standing in the produce aisle of the grocery store,
attempting to buy strawberries. I say
"attempting," because the containers of strawberries are all spread
around and suspiciously stacked. I
realize this is done in hopes that shoppers will buy the very first plastic
container they can grab. It's kind of
like Jenga With Berries.
I have fallen for this trick before. It usually means the produce workers have
carefully placed the most rotten ones in the front after shaking the containers
a bit to hide the skunky ones in the middle of the good ones.
I start systematically checking the bottoms of the
containers. Any with red juice swilling
along the bottoms of the plastic are immediately placed in another produce
location, like on top of the plums. These
ones are clearly rotten and not even in need of consideration.
The next step is to look into the containers. If I see any yellow or white berries, I know
there's a whole slew of under-ripened ones (that some idiot picked) just taking
up space and adding weight to the good ones.
Now comes the fun part.
I have about five containers left from which to choose. I start staring into the containers from
every angle and I make two piles: one
with several smooshy strawberries inside and one with only one or two smooshy
ones inside. Narrowing the whole process
down to two possibilities, there's eeny-meeny-miney-moe until I am holding a
package of strawberries, mostly properly ripened, not too overly ripe, and
weighted with predominantly healthy berries.
It makes me sad when I have to decide which of the least
spoiled fruit I am actually going to pay full price for at the supermarket
checkout.
But what makes me happy is that I can sing while I do
this. Yes, sing. You see, buying grocery store produce is like
reenacting Monty Python's Spam
routine.
Me: Whaddaya got?
Produce: Well, we got strawberries, strawberries,
mold, strawberries, mold, mold, mold, and mold.
Me: Well, I only want strawberries.
Produce: I got this batch here. It's mold, strawberries, mold, strawberries,
strawberries, strawberries, and mold.
Me: I don't want ANY mold.
Produce: It doesn't have as much mold in it as
strawberries, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, and strawberries, now does
it?
Me: Don't you have any strawberries without mold?
Produce: Whaddaya want those for? I got mold, mold, strawberries, and mold. I could hold one mold but not all of it.
Me: I DON'T WANT ANY MOLD!!!!!!!!!!!
Down come the Vikings: Mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold, mold,
mold … Strawberries covered in mold!
Strawberries covered in mold mold mold mold mold mold mold mold….Lovely
mold! Mold … mold … mold …
MOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the end, I get a batch that's not too bad after all.
Me = 1; Monty Python = 0.
