Incorrect Ham

This afternoon, I made my usual Sunday trip to Gristede's to pick up some groceries for the week. And about 15 minutes ago, I started making my lunch for tomorrow, and as I reached for the new half pound of Black Forest ham to make a sandwich, I noticed it had that feeling of having been in my fridge for a week.

So I walked around the corner back to Gristede's, where the Marlboro-fragranted manager needed five minutes to find Vivian, who was downstairs, perhaps coughing on her ungloved hands like she did during my first visit.

Vivian looked at my pack of ham, and I mean that only literally, and looked at me and said defensively, "This is what you asked for. A half pound of Black Forest. This is correct."

"I'm not saying it's incorrect ham. It's slimy and nasty and I don't want to eat it."

Then I thought about it. Vivian had opened the pack of ham and slid her index fingertip across the ham to confirm whether my complaint was legit. Had she found that the ham was as correct as it needed it to be, what would she have done? Returned it to me and demanded that I eat it after she'd pawed all over it?

"My deli's closed. You need to bring this back tomorrow."

Awesome. I'm going to go back after work and get that $3.77 and live it up on Monday night.