Seaweed

[kate_schaefer]

This past Saturday, I went to our regular fishmonger and bought a pint of pickled herring and a pint of seaweed salad, good ingredients for no-cooking summer meals. The seaweed salad was frozen, so I put it in the refrigerator to defrost at its leisure.

On Sunday, I took out the pickled herring and seaweed salad for lunch. I put a few pieces of pickled herring on a plate. I opened the seaweed salad container, noticing as I did so that the seaweed salad looked a bit darker than usual, and that it had a crumpled piece of cellophane under the lid, somewhat obscuring the salad itself. I took the piece of cellophane off and realized that I didn't have a pint of seaweed salad.

I had a pint of caviar.

I closed up the caviar and put it back in the refrigerator. The fishmonger is closed on Sunday, so there was nothing I could do about it right then. I cut up some tomatoes for lunch and thought about the caviar. Could they take it back after I'd opened it? Could I afford to pay the difference in price? I Bingled caviar prices and was glad I hadn't touched the caviar itself. Surely this must be the cheapest caviar; surely if it were really good caviar, it wouldn't have been stored in an unlabeled container. Should I say nothing and take it to a party?

I don't like caviar, I do like my fishmonger, and I prefer to think of myself as a relatively decent and honest human being, so this morning I called them and returned the caviar. They thanked me profusely. They gave me the seaweed salad I'd wanted in the first place and a bonus piece of smoked salmon. They told me the retail value of the caviar: over $500. Not the very cheapest caviar, then.

I'm really glad I don't much care for caviar.

Comments

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing story! Well done. One hopes they will label their caviar better in the future, eh? I do like caviar and must admit I would have been tempted to taste a wee bit, just to, um, be sure, you know.

I was at my favorite grocery store one Christmas, looking to buy a capon as a holiday treat, and it quickly became clear the capons were mismarked. I think they were supposed to be $5.99/lb, but instead were marked $.59/lb (someone missed punching in the final 9). I alerted the meat dept who quickly collected them all and remarked one of them for me. So no discount, but profuse thanks and a feeling of virtue. I wonder how many people got a bargain before me, though.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, usually that feeling of virtue is all you get for behaving in a virtuous manner, but every once in a while, there's smoked salmon or a story. This has been a most difficult week; having a pint of mystery fish eggs was a big improvement on all the previous surprises.

[redbird]

More often a story than smoked salmon, so you did pretty well out of this one, I think. I'm also glad you got your seaweed salad in the end.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, me too. Seaweed salad: yummy trace minerals.