When I was getting ready to go to my conference, I was trying to figure out a good gift to bring the conference organizers and then an archivist who I was seeing later on the trip, and I decided to try maybe bringing some heirloom tomatoes and some small soft French-style cheese with a rind from a local specialty cheesemaker.
And, the weekend before my trip, I get to the farmer’s market on the early side, and although I was able to get this one type of heirloom tomato all summerlong, this kind that has a cool dark-and light-green striped appearance and has a wonderful taste and keeps well at room temperature for like a full week, they’re out that day, since someone had bought them out a few hours earlier, like super early in the morning.
So, I have to improvise and I end up getting a thing of organic cherry tomatoes from another vendor, since those will last a while unrefrigerated as well.
And, at the local specialty cheesemaker, I raise my travel plans with the (older) (white) (yuppie) woman and how I was planning to transport the cheeses for like a period of 5-10 days, and I double-check and ask if they’d keep, and she just gives me a bitchy laugh like I’m overthinking it and is like, “They’re soft round cheeses,” which in the context of the previous conversation meant that they’d be fine unrefrigerated as long as you reasonably take care of them.
And, I get a bad feeling from that interaction, but I buy them anyways since my departure date is nearing and I can’t think of anything else special that I could bring, and I try to convince myself that maybe I’m just neurotically over-reacting, and that the cheeses will be fine.
And, as it turns out, at least the 2 cheeses of the archivist had the rinds broken and were spoiled, even though I kept them in a canvas shopping bag that I tote along at my side and never left them in the car when I was traveling, and otherwise I kept them in the refrigerator at my hostel or hotels, even though they technically didn’t need to be refrigerated….
That’s like at least $22 of spoiled cheese right there, and no gift for them to enjoy to boot.
F*ck that vendor and her shitty condescending customer service, I say!
What a bitch.
