A free meal
I should start this by saying that I’m not yet sick but I still may end up with some kind of food poisoning within the next day. I was grabbing some stuff from Fooland for a quasi-picnic lunch with the kid today and happened to notice that they had some pre-wrapped ahi poke at $3.99 lb. Normally it’s like $12 for ahi, and I was recently convinced by said child to buy all five seasons of Breaking Bad for $50 so I was feeling kind of cheap. Now obviously, if they’re marking this down by 2/3 there’s only four possible reasons. 1) It’s the day old stuff that didn’t sell. 2) It’s a psychology experiment and someone is just fucking with my mind, 3) The shoyu isn’t actually shoyu, it’s motor oil and acetone or D) I’m that lucky…and let’s face it, I’m not that lucky. So I grab some overpriced bread, etc., etc. (seriously bread is fucking expensive) and on a whim grab three trays of poke, at about a pound per tray. Now that would be amusing enough, except that I was with the kid at Ala Moana and on the way to the park across the street he went into the food court area to use the bathroom.
As I’m standing there waiting, some guy comes up and asks me for money, saying he wants something to eat. I don’t really carry much cash and even if I did, I wasn’t going to give it to him, BUT, I’ve got two trays of significantly reduced price shoyu poke (the wasabi was mine) if he wants that.
The guy is vaguely Asian and speaks passable English with maybe a slight California accent so I peg him as possibly local, or at worst someone who’s been here for a while. I offer him the poke and he doesn’t know what poke is. I should have stopped it there. Seriously I should have. You’re hungry, AND picky. Then you’re not really that hungry, fuck you. But I explain to him that it’s fish and he asks “can you eat it like that or do you have to cook it.” I tell him to just eat it like that and he goes on his way.
But now I’m kind of conflicted. On the one hand, if the fish is okay, I’ve just given a pound of poke to some guy who didn’t know what it was, may not like it, might try one piece, think it sucks and toss it. At best, even if I gave a homeless guy a meal for a day, it’s not something he would appreciate. On the other hand, if the fish was bad, I’m going to be sick, my son is probably going to be sick and I just poisoned some guy who was just hungry and looking for a meal.
Bottom line (pun intended) if I call in sick to work on Monday, it’s because I poisoned a homeless guy.
As I’m standing there waiting, some guy comes up and asks me for money, saying he wants something to eat. I don’t really carry much cash and even if I did, I wasn’t going to give it to him, BUT, I’ve got two trays of significantly reduced price shoyu poke (the wasabi was mine) if he wants that.
The guy is vaguely Asian and speaks passable English with maybe a slight California accent so I peg him as possibly local, or at worst someone who’s been here for a while. I offer him the poke and he doesn’t know what poke is. I should have stopped it there. Seriously I should have. You’re hungry, AND picky. Then you’re not really that hungry, fuck you. But I explain to him that it’s fish and he asks “can you eat it like that or do you have to cook it.” I tell him to just eat it like that and he goes on his way.
But now I’m kind of conflicted. On the one hand, if the fish is okay, I’ve just given a pound of poke to some guy who didn’t know what it was, may not like it, might try one piece, think it sucks and toss it. At best, even if I gave a homeless guy a meal for a day, it’s not something he would appreciate. On the other hand, if the fish was bad, I’m going to be sick, my son is probably going to be sick and I just poisoned some guy who was just hungry and looking for a meal.
Bottom line (pun intended) if I call in sick to work on Monday, it’s because I poisoned a homeless guy.
posted by rpalmeira at 10:43 PM
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