Sunday, September 4, 2011

Unbelievable

If someone had told me this story I would have probably thought they were exaggerating…but I actually watched it unfold with my own two eyes.

I had a hankering for some delicious sweet corn, so I drove out to my favourite farmer’s stand to pick up a dozen. This corn stand is located at a gas station – it is a white tent at the corner of the lot with two parking spots beside it. When I pulled into the lot the two parking spots were empty, but they were completely blocked off by a huge black Ford F350 that was parked across the front of both spots – preventing anyone from parking there.

Some people are really self-centered – whatever. So I went and parked further away because unlike some people, it doesn’t actually kill me to walk a little bit.

When I got to the corn stand the owner of the F350 – a woman in her late 40’s was taking up every inch of the place. (Fine – I half expected that based on the way she was parked.) The farmer’s daughter was looking stressed out and she was shucking corn nervously and asking for the lady’s approval before putting it into the lady’s metal corn pot.

While I waited I couldn’t help wondering what kind of lunatic brings her corn pot to the farmer’s stand and expects the girl to shuck them for her – but hey, some people are just real important I guess. The farmer’s daughter couldn’t even make eye contact with me and I suspected that there was a problem.

Finally the woman feigned being satisfied (or maybe it was just taking too long – who knows) and she snottily took her pot of corn and got into her pick-up. She then gunned the motor, peeled out of the parking lot and left us choking on her exhaust. From somewhere in my subconscious I couldn’t remember seeing her pay, but I decided that she had probably paid before I got there.

Now that I had the farmer’s daughter’s attention I ordered my dozen of corn. She asked me if I wanted to choose them and I said no – they are always fine. As she counted out 13 ears and stuffed them into a bag I couldn’t help but say “Wow – that lady really took up a lot of space”.

The farmer’s daughter looked up at me sheepishly. So I explained that the woman had blocked off all the parking spots with her huge pick-up. “Oh that’s nothing” said the young girl, looking around behind her to make sure there was no one else within earshot. “She actually bought 2 dozen corn earlier this afternoon, then came back all upset because 5 of them weren’t perfect.”

“You’re not serious” I said, completely discouraged. The girl turned around and showed me 5 ears of perfectly lovely corn. I looked at them incredulously and said “But there’s nothing wrong with them!” The farmer’s daughter pointed to the tips of the ears where I noticed that a few of the niblets were not developed right to the tip of each ear. Now, everybody knows, that kind of thing happens and it’s really not a big deal. But the girl told me that the woman balled her out black and blue because for 6 bucks a dozen she was damned if she wasn’t going to get her money’s worth. For 6 bucks a dozen the corn had to be perfect.

I was dumbfounded – absolutely gobsmacked. I’m not a farmer, but I live in farm country. I have the utmost respect for farmers – they work long and hard and most of them live around or below the poverty line. This is why I choose to go to a farmer’s stand and pay $6.00 for a dozen corn that has been harvested fresh that morning, rather than pay $1.50 at the grocery store for the scrawny looking, dried out mediocre corn that has been sitting around for a couple of days.

I am so pissed off that I have decided that the woman with the Ford F350 doesn’t deserve to have the big end of the stick. If she isn’t happy paying 6 dollars a dozen for the best corn around, then maybe she should just head to the grocery store the next time. I wish the farmer’s daughter had the big end of the stick and that she would have told that ignorant bitch to take a hike. But the poor little thing was so rattled that someone would actually bring back corn to be exchanged that all she could do was try to make her happy so that she would go away.

Too bad I didn’t have the big end of the stick, because I would have used it to beat the living sh*t out of that snot-faced looser and when I was finished with her I would have used it to demolish the headlights on her F350 and smash her windshield to smitherines with it too.

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