It was the eve of Day 2, and already I couldn't sleep. Jaw was aching (damn those awesome roasted pumpkin seeds); and I also noticed an old toothbrush waiting to be tossed as I replaced it with new Walmart purchase. But hey, there's an application for that brush before it goes to dental tool heaven ... let's get out some Javex and scrub those annoying stains in the shower. Whaaaaa? !!! Sure, the cleaning lady is coming the next day, but that's OK, that's all right, she never gets out that mold anyway.
Well, two hours later, still reeling from the bleach high, mulling over blog topics - hey, there are wrinkly, recently laundered napkins that need ironing. Gee, I haven't done that in a long ... NEVER!!!
So far, NaBloPoMo = discovery of housework that never before existed in this household. Uber clean Ian's gonna love November.
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I know I should be saving this, but you can't keep an introverted blogger quiet once she's on a roll...
Is it just me, or is it really, really strange to have anyone imagine that you would actually purchase frozen filet mignon, salmon steaks, and jumbo shrimp from someone who just rang your doorbell? Right then and there? This has happened to me twice, two separate companies, in the last few weeks.
I try not to answer the door much when I’m at home alone in the day with the kids. Unless of course, I’m expecting someone. But these people happen to come up right after they see me drive into my driveway. Are they stalking perhaps, watching the patterns of the street? It’s a little scary sometimes, this little stay-at-home world, when the street where you live is pretty deserted in the day. Which is probably why I try to get out of the house most days. After staying “at-home” (isn’t that an ironic term?) over two years now, I think that’s been part of my survival strategy.
Call me naïve, but I trust my neighbourhood supermarket as a reliable source of meats for my family’s consumption. I’m assuming that there’s some level of quality control, and some form of recourse if something should ever, heaven forbid, go wrong.
And the quantities these people want you to buy! Here’s a bit of their sell:
“Perfect for your next big party or get together”
All right, let’s just take a chance and maybe make not only me but all of my friends and family at the next celebration, sick in one fell swoop!
“Well, if you want to sample it, why don’t you buy this pack of 10 premium salmon steaks for $124, but you’d better buy it now because we don’t know when we’ll be in the neighbourhood again.”
Yes, I happen to have that on this week’s grocery list. Oh wait, that’s our BUDGET for this week’s grocery list.
The first company actually showed me the product, pulled from the box. This second one yesterday pulled out their brochure with a huge list of possible meat and seafood products I could purchase. By the time he got to the line “…do you like jumbo shrimp” I was already telling him no thank you. The funniest thing was that G came up just behind me during his shpiel about shrimp and answered “NO!”.
These incidents remind me of the pickup trucks that I’ve seen in the summer sometimes when you’re coming off the highway. Sometimes they’re parked at a gas station, or just by a country road. They’ve got handwritten signs that say “Frozen lobster, Shrimp” propped against the truck. Why would I stop to buy lobster or shrimp off of some pickup truck?
Maybe these are fantabulous deals, and I’m just unaware of this whole other arm of the food industry. In any case, I’m not going there anytime soon. I’ll stick to our suburban grocery warehouse, thank you very much. It's just the way I are. (Can't get that out of my head!)
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Gotta go to bed now. Wake me up when November ends.
24 comments:
Here in Norway, we buy ice cream off ice cream trucks. EVERY WEEK. Packages of ice cream. They now park in front of our house, because we are their biggest customer.
I suppose the poisoining danger is rather low, because, well, it's FREEZING here anyway :)
Seriously, I don't like that they seem to stalk you - that's a little unnerving. Next time, I'd not open the door. If they know you are home, it might stop them from trying again...?
A little worried about the toothbrush thing, Karen! :)
Heidi
I tell them we don't eat meat.. I just don't finish my sentence .. (off of trucks).
I wouldn't buy meat off a truck either, but I do miss the milk delivery service we had when I lived in London, where they'd also drop off bread, cheese, bacon, eggs, even gin and tonic every week if you needed it. Sigh. Weekly home delivery of booze. Life was so different then!
Funny- they were around here too. We say we have a butcher in the family..
Nice blog BTW. Mind if I link you?
http://linda-sands.blogspot.com/
I don't buy from these "truck-marts" either. Sometimes I'm tempted - to get it all, freeze it and not have to worry about it - but the prices always stop me in my tracks. Have a great day, Karen - see ya.
Okay, we've bought meat off a truck. So far we're still alive and kickin'. We had a great experience the first time with lobster tails. The other products we tried weren't as great.
Once a salesman gave me a whole schpeil about meat farmed from the mennonites in Ontario. All organic, no antibiotics in the animals, etc. etc. The guy wanted to sell a HUGE HUGE HUGE (did I say HUGE?) order to the extent that part of the promo was that they would give you a "Free" freezer to keep it in deep freeze. Um, can anyone say "no thanks?" :P
Coincidence: I was scrubbing the mold out of my shower yesterday with bleach fumes too! I didn't use a toothbrush though. Maybe I should. Cleaning lady stood us up again. Anyone know a good one? LOL
WOW what a diatribe! when my daughter is done with her toothbrush, i will send it to you for toilet scrubbing. it plays queen's "we will rock you." that will really enlighten your experience.
Only thing I have ever bought off a truck in my neighborhood is Ice Cream - at $1.50 per BAR. Only thing I WILL EVER buy off a truck, thank you very much...meat would be the last thing I would purchase from someone knocking on my door...scary. (except maybe what badness jones said..that might be kinda cool)
Much luck with this November posting challenge...you will do great! I can't wait to read these every day!
We have the same thing in our area, except furniture! Like I want to buy furniture off the back of a tractor-trailer parked in fornt of my house! The last guy that came to our door said he had "genuine North Carolina furniture". I told him I was very happy with my IKEA furniture. Because, you know, it is genuine Swedish furniture!
Isn't it amazing how dirty the house looks when you've got writing to do?
Karen, do you wanna come over to our house??? ;)
I've never bought meat from a door-to-door meat salesperson before, but I have bought seafood (lobster, scallops, etc) from this guy who made frequent runs to the Maritimes. This was when we used to live in Montreal and we actually knew the guy.
I want to see what I am buying, not shopping door to door. The fact that they arrive just after you got home scares me a little. Meat stalkers.
Let's hear it for Random Bloggers!
We get the meat trucks occasionally as well. Very, very odd.
The shrimp trucks made sense to me when I was living about 30 miles off of the Gulf Coast...caught in the morning, sell in the afternoon. Very fresh and yummy. But I would never partake of them now that I'm living in Austin.
I think you have made a very wise decision. You will live a long life.
I never get creepy salespeople. Not ever.
Sooo funny! I had never heard of such a crazy thing as frozen meats being sold fI rom a truck, until moved to VT. A dealer came all the way, way out here in the boonies where I live and I thought "WTH?" Then I then asked him, because my grandma was coming for TG holiday, if he had any Kosher turkeys. He told me he didn't know what that was. I of course jumped on that, still in a state of confusion about this strange man in my driveway with frozen meats, and told him "Well, that's all we eat here, Kosher meat" I never saw him again.
I would go stir-crazy if that's me. I don't know. You think you're paying for prime real estate for some leisure living, but instead you get targeted for luxury door-to-door. Geez.
Those guys freak me out too. Just seems wrong!
And I am the same way with being a 'stay at home" mom, I have to get out for sanity's sakes!
Those door-to-door meat sellers are so smarmy, for sure. They always seem to have hired a gaggle of 18-year-old frat boys, given them minimal training, and then set them loose with instructions to "act KLASSY."
Shudder.
I've never seen a meat truck or door to door meat salesmen round these parts. But in the summer we do have the occasional truck or just a guy with a stack of flats of strawberries or cherries standing on the corner. Sometimes I really want to buy some so the guy can go home to take a few dollars to his family. Even though I full well know I can get better from the MANY farmer's markets in our area. Granted, I never have actually stopped, I just think about it.
Since we switched to an electric toothbrush system I no longer have handy little brushy cleaning tools around the house. I just can't bring myself to buying a new one. Besides, the best cleaning toothbrush has been sufficiently broken in already.
Was it the schwann man? That's a company that sells meat and seafood from trucks around here, though I didn't know they were door to door. My sister in law used to order their stuff, and she LOVED it. :)
For all the idiots who day they never buy meat off a truck...how the heck do ya think it gets to the frocery store??? Duh...think about it...your steaks get to the grocery store...only to have a lazy kid let them sit there for hour not even in a cooler. Then the people who work there for the 6.00 7.00 an hour...ya think they care about wahing their hands or making sure everything is at the appropriate temp. At least I know when I buy FROZEN FRESH the middleman is cut out, the price is right...if ya do your math and arent stupid, and I dont have to worry about the kid in the grocery store putting his snotty finger in the shrink wrap where my steak is. Just because someone brings you steaks....to remind you its free delivery...but you others probably love paying for the gas prices now adays. Also, you can say no...you act like its an inconvience.......when its actually the other way around. For all the idiots who dont buy their meat from a truck in their driveway you must all shop at TOPPS? Or you really trust your local grocer and the mad cow crap. Get real....its way safer than the grocery store...DO THE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU CRY GO AWAY or I dont eat meat....dont ya think they know your a lier......you think you are pulling one over on them when actually they are looking at you like you are retarted. And please let me know how all of your steaks are getting to the grocery store if not by truck....and you dont even know what that driver looks like and what he's doin to the meat before it hits the store. THINK ABOUT IT>>>>GET A CHECK UP FROM THE NECK UP PEOPLE!!!!
Now how many of ya eat at Mc Donald's...........think anout that food.....
You know, maryd, I appreciate your voicing your side of the story, and as I have acknowledged in my original post, maybe I don't know enough about that side of the industry. But I did just say no to the product, I don't feel comfortable buying stuff that I don't know whether for myself, or for my family, is safe. Maybe if I decided to go that route to buy these gourmet products, I would most certainly do my research before embarking on such a purchase.
But what I don't appreciate is the outright rude tone and your use of the word "idiot" to describe me on my own blog, or any of my blog friends who have voiced their own opinions here.
I have never deleted any comment other than spam, but although I am leaving this up as there is another side to this story, I was very, very tempted to hit that button. Because I'm sure there was a much more eloquent way to represent that side.
And for crying out loud, it was just my opinion on MY blog!
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