THAT'S STILL GOOD!

There are times when you really have to wonder how sane your fellow human beings are. Sometimes, the brain doesn't function. Things do not go click, there is a profound lack of gearshift, the machine is stuck on vibrate.

I am surprised there isn't more food poisoning in this country.


A counter person at a sandwichery in the financial district which is now no longer in business once astounded me by first wiping down the work area with a grungy cloth, then, wearing the same gloves which were smeared with grunge, proceeding to make a sandwich.
Naturally I started screaming when he began to construct my lunch.


The looks of flabbergastion on the faces of the other employees spoke volumes. Why was this middle-aged git screaming so?
I never ate there again.


At a restaurant where I worked years ago, a can of mango pulp was the issue. The fact that it exploded a jet of orange goo into the air upon being punctured with a can opener did not suggest to a coworker that the contents were no longer kosher. The smell of fermentation (rot) could not overrule his conviction than if it was canned, it was safe till the coming of the mahdi.


"THAT'S STILL GOOD! "


It took wrothwaxing, wrestling, and prolonged argumentation to get him to throw it out.


I mention all this because this past weekend a friend detailed a dispute with her auntie. About a bottle of oyster sauce with a large green blob of hairy mold on the surface of the savoury brown goo. And an argument that devolved into weepy wailed assertions that it could NOT be thrown out, why, it was still good, and it was (nearly ) new! A waste!
New, in this context, means that it had hardly been used since the bottle was opened when Noah landed the Ark. There being still over ninety percent of the original contents in the bottle.
Quite new. Yes.


The most interesting statement, from my friend's point of view, was that "if you throw it out, some undeserving white person will find it in the trash and use it - but I paid for it!"

She hastened to reassure her auntie that white folks aren't that stupid - no matter how undeserving white folks might be, they would NEVER think of using oyster sauce that had a huge blob of green mold in the bottle!

And in any case, the white folks hardly ever go through your trash. Honest.