I have had it up to pussy’s bow the people who come in and ring up and write to this office about the evil supermarkets stocking non-Australian fruit and veg in the fresh section. Some stupid woman rang this morning and yelled about how disgusted she was that her supermarket stocked kiwi fruit from Portugal (or Spain or somewhere, I kind of zoned out when I realised what the rant was) and how dare they and why aren’t they stocking Australian stuff - and did you know that they have cherries from America … etc etc etc.
So again I explain - there’s imported fruit and veg in the fucking supermarket because you the fucking consumer demand any type of fruit and fucking vegetable ALL YEAR ROUND. You’re no longer fucking happy to wait until local or Australian produce is in season, no, no, no, you MUST have whatever you want right fucking now, and therefore dickhead - YOU have created a demand!! Where’s there’s demand, there will be a market - got it? It’s YOUR fault.
Of course I actually made sympathetic noises and then politely explained about supply and demand. She was still shitty though. Oh well.
I’ve been pissed that the markets didn’t get Australian apples in, and all we have are crap ones from Washington that are only good for shooting with an arrow at this time of year. It’s so stupid when they bitch about an out of season product being imported. I found out that there are a lot of adults that have no idea when stuff is in season.
I’m glad you added “at this time of year” or else I’d have to be seriously offended on behalf of my state’s apples. (Coincidentally, I was reminiscing earlier today about my belief as a child that our small orchard’s apples obviously had to be ripe as soon I was out of school for the summer, instead of when they were actually ripe (halfway through the summer, through the beginning of school). But I was 7 then.)
I wanted to be able to say that as it’s autumn or early winter in Australia, the weather alone should have indicated to the woman that fruit in the store was likely to be imported, not fresh from Australia, and it wouldn’t be the store’s fault for it. But the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website’s front page forecasts range from 14ºC (Hobart) to 32ºC (Darwin)- about 57ºF to not quite 90ºF. So maybe she was fooled into thinking that since it was still either mild or hot, depending on your location, there should still be plenty of kiwi or cherries or what have you growing in Australia. (Further mucking about on the BoM website has taught me that I really did not get Australia’s climate at all until now; the winters are much warmer than I expected. I know my expectations were wrong partially because I always think Australia is further south than it actually is.)
In conclusion, that lady’s initial outrage might be slightly excusable, but she should have been nicer to you, especially when you took the time to explain why the kiwis were imported.
I’m not sure how things tend to go on your part of the rock (actually I’m 100% sure things go the same regardless of latitude or longitude) but yeah, if you talk to a guy about veg long enough he will eventually find a way to turn it into vag.
