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

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wondered about that too. I suspect that their caviar customers are few and well-known to them, and that they may call one and offer a great private deal in the circs. I'm well-known to them, too, having been their customer for more than 15 years. Can they trust me, even though I don't have a food-handler's license? Yes. Is it legal to trust me in these circumstances? Probably not. Do I trust them to make sure the caviar is disposed of in a safe way? Yes.

My biggest concern, actually, was to make sure that when they do an inventory of the freezer in which the caviar is normally stored, there is no discrepancy, no suspicion that one of their employees (all of whom I like and respect) had stolen the caviar. I don't much care what they do with the thing itself.