This morning I nailed a couple of chores I've put off for a few days. It's a bit of a convoluted story, and it has nothing to do with building a start-up venture. Well, it does in that it took me away from the job for 30min this morning as I managed the transmogrification.
It all starts back in mid-April when, while shopping we purchased some beef. Now, we're not huge meat eaters, though we tend to do it probably 60% of the time, though we're just as likely to have pasta and tomato herb sauce, or beans and rice. Not because they are vegetarian, but because they taste good.
Anyways, there was a nice sirloin steak in the freezer for future use. Then, recently the news reports carried a story about E-Coli contaminated beef produced in the US imported by Canadian grocery store giant Loblaws and sold to Canadians.
Curiously, when US stores imported well inspected and cleared beef that come from farms where a BSE cow was later found, the Canadian industry was decimated as the borders were closed to Canadian beef for I forget how long. Okay, this gets me off on a further aside, of how the meat packers went on to screw the Canadian farmers by lowering the price the would pay for their product to almost nothing, while wholesale and retail pricing on Canadian beef in Canadian stores stayed put at pre-scandal prices. But I digress.
Anyway, no biggy. Loblaws makes no announcement at all. The media however tells consumers if you have beef with certain labelling and dates in your freezer, throw it out. Well, thanks I'm not going to throw away a $8 steak. It's not me that messed up, it was the meat producer/packer who contaminated the product, and it's up to the retailer to take that up with them. This is not my fault, I am not going to pay for it. It's bad enough I have to take time out of my day to deal with it, and that my health was at risk while that tasty contaminated slab of beef sat in my freezer waiting for me.
Change of scene: it's the summer of 2006 and I dutifully trim the grass around our house and in doing so, the black and decker weed wacker (sorry, I don't recall their specific product name) tears into its work. Moments later, the handle breaks off into my hand, and I have to awkwardly hold the central shaft of the thing to get the job done.
It's about a year later before I finally throw the broken piece into my car, and many months after that before I finally hit the brakes while driving past the Dewalt/Black and Decker rebuilt product and parts store just near my neighbourhood, and inquire about a replacement. No problem I'm told, what's the model number of the product?
Cut to a year later and I've finally not only looked at the part number, but remembered to not just write it on a slip of paper, but this time onto a piece of tape which I affix to the broken part. That very same day, I make it to the Dewalt store again, and inquire about the replacement. The good news is that it's only just under $5 for the part. The bad news is that four of them have been on order for months, and it doesn't look like they are available.
I go to the shelf and grab a late model weed wacker and say, "This shaft looks about the same, can you get me the secondary handle that would replace this one." No problem, says the store clerk at this small industrial products store, who incongruously looks, dresses and sounds like the male fashion correspondent for the avant garde collection at Milan fashion week. It's also about $5 and we'll call you when it's in.
Flash forward a week, and we've just heard about the E-Coli contamination, and the advice to throw out the tainted meat, and similarly find nothing on the Loblaws website, but a list of the products on the CBC news website. Our steak is implicated in this mess.
A couple of days later a message on our answering machine - apparently from Fashion File, turns out to be from the parts shop, and my part is in.
The stage is set for a world class transmogrification. Okay it takes me a couple of more days, but this morning, I put the hard-frozen contaminated steak into a plastic bag, and that into my re-useable Loblaws branded pseudo-cloth bag and jump into the car. Behind me on the floor still sits the broken grass trimmer handle presaging my upcoming meeting with fate. I'm en route to the grocery store ready for an argument, and vowing to talk really loudly about EColi tainted products with the customer service folk if I have any trouble.
I feel a little guilty, as my little rental office, global HQ, is located equidistantly between the grocery store and the Dewalt store, meaning I will drive into the office on my way, eliminating the opportunity for the exercise associated with a walk in today. But I proceed.
At the store, I approach the counter, and a not-too-cheery looking customer service person arrives to take my return. She says nothing, but goes to a sheet of paper at the far side of the desk, and then tries first one computer then another (she appears to not remember the password to get past the first screen). I see her counting out money - it appears I will not need my loud speech about how "You sold me EColi tainted meat which was publicly recalled and will not take it back!?".
She comes over, gets a signature (I make nonsensical scrawls in these meaningless unidentified signature situations) and gives me my refund, while also jabbing me in the thumb with her pen, and leaving an ink streak on my skin. Ahhh, her revenge. That will teach me.
Then the magic happens.
I take my $7.57 and drive it straight over to the Dewalt shop. I enter and see a lady shuffling box and power adapter awkwardly back and forth on a pile, seemingly oblivious to my standing a few feet away. I wait, figuring that a few seconds for her attention is courtesy, and am about to give her an 'ahem' when she notices me with a start, the chime on the door not seeming to have fulfilled it's intended function. In the back I hear the lisped accent of the fashionista regaling the middle-aged gentleman with the plot of a recent movie he's seen.
The exchange happens, and I have in my hand a handle which will hopefully fulfill the needs of my handleless lawn trimmer. The conversion is complete, tainted meat becomes grass trimmer repair parts.
Somehow there is some universal justice in this tale. Had the poor bovine whose years of grass eating been present, he would surely have approved of the lawn that had gone poorly trimmed for a few years.
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