Unstacked

On my way home from work on Tuesdays I stop at the Ferry Building to pick up our organic fruit CSA box at Frog Hollow, a wonderful farm just outside of San Francisco. And every Wednesday morning on my way in to work, I stop there again and get a much larger CSA box for my office. Biking with 20lbs of very delicate stone fruit is just the sort of challenge I enjoy on a Wednesday morning.

When I get to work, I very carefully (but also usually very quickly as I am running late for a meeting) lay all the fruit out on the table, each peach and apricot in it's own little spot, not touching anyone else. It's for their own safety.

For context, I need to tell you that the office is kept on high tidiness alert at all times. Neatness counts here. Violators are summarily berated, and, just for good measure, our Office Manager is regularly berated on their behalves in spite of the fact that she is awesome and takes really good care of the office.

Knowing that the urge to stack the fruit in a bowl to look neat and tidy would be practically irresistable, I was very explicit via office-wide email that this would not be advisable.

"If you're wondering about the non-hierarchical presentation, it's because the tender flesh of the stone fruits does better in a single layer rather than stacked in a bowl."

Given all this, I'm sure you will find it easy to understand my reaction walking by the fruit table later in the day only to find, to my shock and horror, the fruit had been stacked in the bowl.

"Ahh!" I cried out, loudly. "Unstack the fruit! Unstack the fruit!"

I paused and stood there for a moment. No one responded.

"Who did this?!" I shouted some more. "I was very clear! No stacking! The tender flesh! Oh the tender tender flesh! It can't take it! Unstack the fruit!"*

Nada.

I walked over to one of my teammates who wasn't going to the meeting that I was now very late for.

"Would you please unstack the fruit? It's all going to rot if it stays in the bowl like that." I used a much nicer voice. She humored me. And I'm pretty sure Emily didn't get yelled at (um, other than by me...)


*I did, in fact, literally shout this in my office.