The other day I went to one of those places that make burgers in a hurry, to order a cheeseburger meal. I don’t want to mention their name because I don’t want to be liable for defamation, but this place in one of those In and Out places that are really fast. I noticed they had a signed posted at the cash register that they are not using any tomatoes in their burgers as a precaution because of the U.S. tomato recall (even though their tomatoes were not from any of the suspected areas in question). After I made my order I noticed the price of my meal without tomatoes was exactly the same as ever before. I asked the cashier if I was entitled to a reduced price since I was not getting any tomatoes.
Cashier: “No sir, it’s the same price.”
It was passed 4 PM and I had no lunch yet, and I was not about to go somewhere else.
Me: “How do you know price of a burger with tomatoes and without tomatoes is the same?”
Cashier: “That’s what the register says, sir”
Me: “I know. I can see the total. That’s not what I mean. How did your company figure out that they should not reduce the price of burgers without tomatoes?”
Cashier: “I don’t know sir. Would you like to talk to the manager?”
Me: “Oh no. I was just wondering.”
I paid the cashier and moved to the side and waited for my order. By the time I got my food and sat down to eat, a lady approached my table and introduced herself as the shift manager and asked if she might help me.
Me: “I was wondering what happens to the money that is collected for tomatoes that we don’t get to eat?”
I am sure the cashier had already briefed her before she approached me, but I don’t think she was expecting to be asked about what happens to the money.
Manager: “Well sir, the money is deposited in the bank everyday.”
Me: “No, I mean isn’t that extra profit for the company? They don’t have to buy millions of dollars worth of tomatoes but still collect the money from consumers for it.
The whole exchange was awkward. I didn’t mean to be nagging about pennies. It was just an interesting economical situation where price of a commodity did not seem to be worth what it should be, like how bottled water is highly over priced, sometimes more expensive than petroleum.
Manager: “We are concerned about public health, sir”
I love how polite these people are. In Iran by now they would told me “ageh khoshetoon nemiyad lotfan az yeh jaayeh degeh bekharid.”
Me: “Really! That’s really interesting because I have a blog about health issues. I usually write about personal illnesses like kidney stones, and rectal exams, but it would be interesting if I wrote about salmonella outbreak from eating tomatoes.”
Manager: “Are you a doctor?”
Me: “Oh no. I am just a sick person.”
Manager: “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir.”
Me: “I was wondering if, when there was tomatoes available, do you charge extra for extra tomatoes?”
Manager: “No sir, we never have and we never will.”
That’s very odd, don’t you think? It’s as if tomatoes have no value. Whether they give you extra tomatoes or they don’t give you any the price of a burger stays the same. Yet, in some super markets tomatoes are sold as much as $3.99 per pound. That’s like a quarter per slice.
I’ll never figure out how capitalism works.
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Footnote:
by Mazloom on Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:21 AM PDTThis was my first attempt to publish an article using the new automated system. I was not think in terms of not being able to edit it once it was published, that’s why it has so many spelling and grammatical errors.
Of course it's risque. It's slut city, darling.
by Rosie T. on Mon Jun 23, 2008 06:52 PM PDTCheck your e-mail.
Will e-mail you instead........0:o)
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Mon Jun 23, 2008 06:51 PM PDTSolh va Doosti
Natalia
Uh oh.........spaghettios! someone's getting a liiiiiiiiiiittle
by Rosie T. on Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:50 PM PDTkinky here.
As for Nathasha, it's Russian. You sing the Song of the Volga Boatmen with that name. You do NOT belly dance.
Nadia? I dunno? Isn't that russky too?
R.
Hmmmmmm.....a name
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Sun Jun 22, 2008 08:23 PM PDTWell, there is Nadia. We could work out the variations of Natalia.
Talia
Alia
Atalia
Lia (I have no plans on wearing Princess Leia's slave outfit)
One of my nicknames is Natasha.
OK, fine, Miss Belly Dancer, so what will your belly dancing
by Rosie T. on Sun Jun 22, 2008 07:17 PM PDTNAME be. Natalia Alvarez Alvarado simply will not do! Something Persian, I would assume. How about Soraya? It is my favorite name. Fatima is Arabic and far too common for belly dancers.
I really don't think the poem requires much explanation. It is crystal clear for anyone who has an IQ over 80 and the courage to face the truth that it tells.
Which come to think of it may rule out many people on this website. teehee.
In any case the individual about whom it's written is bound to understand and even though I didn't SUBMIT it for him or even WRITE it for him, I did it all for MYSELF and hadn't intended to submit it at all until today. Still, I'm so happy he will know the truth.
Not to get back at him or make him squirm. Simply because...the truth shall set us ALL free.
Next step in this game of cyberMonopoly, pass go, proceed to jj's blog. You will have a laugh and a half.
I feel like Mata Houri.
Kisses,
R.
Actually
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Sun Jun 22, 2008 06:23 PM PDTActually, I read it as soon as it came out. It is very good and profound as always. I of course, don't need an explanation.
Ya compre la blusa y tela que va alrededor de mis caderas para bailar el baile de medio oriente "Belly dance". Solamente me falta la falda. :o) Es como estoy expresando mi fustracion. Yo prefiero mi modo que el de Maz.
Solh va Doosti
Nadia
He will speak. Don't worry. Give him time.
by Rosie T. on Sun Jun 22, 2008 06:17 PM PDTJust as Cruella Deville, the Queen of Mean, will eventually have to speak to me. Of course with Mazzie-joon there is NO WAY in bloody hell that anything could POSSIBLY get so sick and twisted and psycho wacko as with Cruella Hitchock. teehee
Sheesh. Writing that new blog has been an exorcism. It has restored me to wholeness. Brace yourself. But it's beautiful.
R.
Robin
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Sun Jun 22, 2008 06:07 PM PDTYes, I know about this fustration that you speak of. He is not the only one going through it. Severasl people on this web site are in the same boat which is why they tend to be so aggressive. They have to channel it out some how.
It is most definitely not menopause. :o)
**************
I also noticed the change in his name but was unable to ask him. I don't know if you have noticed but he has been giving me the silent treatment.
Solh va Doosti
Nadia
Oh let him be, Slasher!
by Rosie T. on Sun Jun 22, 2008 04:44 PM PDTMazzie's going through male menopause.
He's moody lately...
OHAHAHAHOHOHOHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE i'm sorry i'm sorry i just couldn't resist, maz, PLEASE don't take revenge on me PLEASE DON'T PLEASE! i have enough to do fending off the pillaging and plundering of attila the hun. you know, captain kindness? PLEASE don't get mad at me, i need you for my mentoring ohahahahahohohoheeheeheehee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:D :D :D !!! boing! boing! boing! ricochet rabbit!!!
But seriously Mazloom, we know you're at the height of your virility and you're randy as a rabbit and we have absolute faith in your prowess. Sexual and otherwise. And even more seriously, HOW CAN I CHANGE MY CYBERNAME WITHOUT CHANGING MY ACCOUNT? jj won't tell me. All he does is growwwl at me telepathically. And Fouaad the tech guy appears to be deceased and of course jj won't tell me who the new tech guy is either...so I am compelled to ask you.
Didn't you change from Mazloom Ast to just Mazloom without losing your account? Every time Slash here changed her name she had to change her account. Didn't you, princesa mia? Pls. explain
Foxy Roxy
PS Maz, don't take it to heart. Remember, last year I used to constantly refer to myself as "perimenopausal" just to get at these guys' goats....teehee
PPS GUYS, READ MY NEW BLOG. YOU'RE NOT GONNA BELIEVE WHAT I SUBMITTED! I didn't believe it either! I'd started it a couple of weeks ago and never intended to submit it, but somehow today I needed to finish it AND to submit it. I needed to make that experience into something BEAUTIFUL and MEANINGFUL and I needed to have the courage to expose myself that way. If people freak out and they want to ostracize me, well, whatever. To each his own. Majority of people here are people who write. I am a writer, I am an artist. An artist is supposed to explore the boundaries of experience, physical and mental, the places where most people don't dare to go, and come back and tell the story, tell the TRUTH. And I have to be who I am.
And I feel greeeeeeeeeeeat! Like a shirzanna! Like Tony the Tigress. I honestly haven't felt this good in years.
And anyway some of the people here could sorely use an education about taste.
Mazzie's an artist too, Slash. That's why it's OK for him to disrupt the most important political thread on the website and rant and rave like a sarcastic bull. Because it's necessary. And anyway as you know ,after he left I immediately told them to ignore him. I briefly explained that he was a cynic who only wrote about underwear and tomatoes.
And I provided LINKS too, Maz! Good PR for you!
Always at your service,
Rosanna
Mazzie jan,
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:31 PM PDTLet us revisit your statement on Mr. Rashidian's blog, shall we?
"Nothing is going to change with these talks.........others just say something just to say something, so to see what happens next "
You have written many blogs on environment, the current President of Iran, price of tomatoes.........etc. Has all this talk changed anything? NO! Not everything written on this web site is to cause a change. To make a real change in the government, requires the will of the people actually living in Iran.
Now, what do you mean with the following statement? I found it rather offensive. I do not consider Iranian blood to be cheap. Do you actually think the blood of your relatives still living in Iran to be cheap?
"Cheap blood of Iranian people is upon their own neck"
I haven;'t written any articles because
by Rosie T. on Fri Jun 20, 2008 06:27 AM PDTI was sick and when I came back jj stopped featuring my blogs that were the hardest to write. Ones I put my heart and soul into like the one on googling and the poem called Nation. They are important work for the community and almost no one saw them (As you know you can access them in my tracking at Contributrors on the bottom of the home page?. Actually I begged him to feature them, told him the googling one took ten hours to write but he wouldn't. He only features my simpler, shorter ones.
So now I am afraid to put time and effort, and my heart and soul, into my blogs because I'm afraid they won't get featured (he used to feature everything I wrote) and even more afraid to write an article. If I spend ten hours on a blog, can you imagine how long it takes me to write an article? Not only am I afraid it won't get published, what's evern worse with the articles is it takes about four days before you even know if it's going to get published, you just have to wait until it appears (or not), And it is painful enough for me waiting a day to see if my blogs get featured, I think waiting four or five days for the articles would kill me.
I have three really good articles that are half-finished. I already worked a full week almost non-stop on one of them. But at that time I didn't know there was a big chance it wouldn't get published. SoI really don't know what to do. It's the hurt that hurts even more than the wasted time.
Thanks for asking. But as I said I really don't know what to do.
Old fan,
by Mazloom on Thu Jun 19, 2008 09:34 PM PDTI have been recovering from a sick marriage for over a year, and I think I am finally over it now. Nefrat and I have finally come to an understanding. We’ll see how it goes.
It’s been over four month since your last article. Why do you deprive us the pleasure? What happened that made you stop? We need more people like you in this world.
Old fan,
Right on, Bunny Cake! Lots of fruits on this site these past
by Rosie T. on Thu Jun 19, 2008 07:27 PM PDTcouple of days celebrating Gay Day by trying to get the entire middle-class, middle-brow, middle-aged Iranian community of mostly Tehrangeles to relinquish a lifetime of deeply ingrained prejudices in 48 hours, via pixel, no less, and...
as for the vegetable on this site, well....as the gays often say: don't ask, don't tell.
Viva la revolucion!
I will win.
tee hee
Bale! Freedom for fruits and vegetables!
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Thu Jun 19, 2008 07:13 PM PDT(sarcasm) :o)
Solh va Doosti
Nadia
I am a member of the Tomato Brigade and we are fighting tooth
by Rosie T. on Thu Jun 19, 2008 03:34 PM PDTand nail for Civil Rights for tomatoes. Every tomato life is valuable.
Would you like to join our brigade? Membership is only $100 per year. And that is the value of only 400 slices of tomato. Little more than one per day. It is a SMALL price to pay for the bigger picture.
Rosie Tozih
Explanation of Tomatoes
Tomatoes are not the only...
by desertlion (not verified) on Thu Jun 19, 2008 09:33 AM PDTingredient that people don't get credit for not having it in their food. There has been several occassions when I dind't want certain stuff in my food (i.e. bacon, artichoke), but I wasn't given a discount. However, if I wanted something extra like cheese then I was charged extra!
That's the "fuzzy logic" of capitalism.
Instead of complaining to
by Anonypishi (not verified) on Wed Jun 18, 2008 01:41 PM PDTInstead of complaining to the headquarter of the fastfood company,you were complaining to the poor manager and just out of high school employee. Now that's funny.
very funny!
by old fan (not verified) on Wed Jun 18, 2008 09:45 AM PDTGlad to have Mazloom back in good form! Forget about all that ex stuff -- write more of this kind of thing.
Good thing you never questioned
by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on Tue Jun 17, 2008 05:21 PM PDTwhen there was a recall on Spinach. hahahaha
Solh va Doosti
Nadia