Day 96: Shoppers Beware of Packaged Produce

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 96: Shoppers Beware of Packaged Produce

Every Saturday morning, I walk past a supermarket. Most of the time I don’t have money or any other means of payment on me, so I just look and keep walking. Well, strictly speaking, I don’t keep walking, I stop and admire all the fruit and veggies that are on display in outside bins and crates. All at unbelievable prices.

Last Saturday I came prepared. I had my debit card with me and I was going to do some serious fruit and veggie shopping. As I walked along I picked up a tray of nine neatly wrapped tomatoes, a tray of kiwis, a tray of Brussels sprouts, a box of strawberries, a bunch of bananas, a bag of mandarins, a bunch of leeks, and a bag of green beans.

Back home I stuffed everything in the fridge and felt every so pleased with my shopping. That good feeling didn’t last long. When dinner time came around and I wanted to prepare a tomato salad, I noticed that every single one of the nine wrapped tomatoes were rotten. Whoever had packaged the tomatoes had placed the rotten spot face down and once packaged nobody would be the wiser. The same with the Brussels sprouts and the kiwis, some of them were in good condition, but the rotten ones were strategically placed so no one would notice.

I feared the worst as I reached for the mandarins and the strawberries, would it be the same? Yep, as I rolled the tiny fruits out of their container most of them showed black marks covered with grey fuzz.

The first time I wanted to unwrap a banana I got another bad surprise there. The first one was rotten, so was the second and the third. I found it unbelievable. On the outside, the bananas looked perfectly normal, but on the inside the fruit was black.

Now I understood why the fruit and veggies had been packaged … once wrapped in cellophane, nobody could check the condition of the produce. As for the price … yeah, it was cheap, but who wants rotten produce? Now I had to go to my regular supermarket and buy everything again. So, what started out as cheap actually turned out to be expensive.

For me, it’s a lesson learned. Even though my regular supermarket charges considerably more for their goods, I’m willing to pay those extra dollars.

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/toronto-cat-rescue-bowl-a-thon-9/