Wednesday, November 15, 2006

What would you do?

A theoretical situation that bears absolutely no relation to anything that may have happened in the past, may currently be happening or may be about to happen in the future...

A woman one day decides that she needs some vegetables, so she and her husband go shopping. The husband knows that his wife is particularly fond of Farmer Brown's vegetables so they drive all the way out to his farm. Farmer Brown's vegetables are rather expensive, but they are some of the tastiest vegetables in the area, so it's worth the drive and extra cost.

The woman chooses four onions and a lettuce and Farmer Brown offers to deliver them on Tuesday, which is fine with the woman as she doesn't need them until Wednesday. The woman and her husband leave the farm and take the long drive back to town.

Tuesday finally arrives and the eager anticipation of the tasty vegetables has kept the woman and her husband excited all week. The phone rings early in the morning and the husband answers it, "Hello."

"Ah, hello Husband, it's Farmer Brown here"

"Hello Farmer Brown, how are you today?"

"I'm fine thanks, I'm afraid I have bad news though. When I told you I had lettuce, I made a mistake, I was actually looking at my cabbages at the time. I won't have lettuce for another three weeks."

"What?"

"Yes, sorry, I didn't realise until today, when the delivery boy came to load your order into the basket on his bike."

The husband explained the problem to his wife, who decided that she liked Farmer Brown's lettuce so much, that it would be worth waiting another three weeks.

"Okay, Farmer Brown," said the husband, "we'll wait for the lettuce, what time are we getting our four onions today."

"Oh," said Farmer Brown, "the delivery boy didn't take them since your lettuce wasn't ready. I can cancel your order and refund your money, or give your four onions to Postman Joe to drop off on Friday."

By this time the husband was very tempted to cancel the order and go and get a lettuce and four onions from Farmer Green instead, but remembering how much his wife loved Farmer Brown's vegetables, sighed and said, "Okay, send them with Postman Joe."

Friday arrived and the husband got home to discover that Postman Joe had delivered not four but six of Farmer Brown's very expensive onions. This was almost certainly a mistake on Farmer Brown's part. He has never been known to give any of his very expensive onions away for free and had not indicated he was going to do so in any of the conversations he had had with the husband.

Whilst the husband and wife wait another two and a half weeks for their lettuce they can certainly use Farmer Brown's two extra onions but the question is, should they?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uhhhh . . . . I'm like the "President of the Ethical Intentions Pertaining to or Dealing with Morals or Principles of Morality which Pertain to Right and Wrong in Conduct of the People on Earth. . . . "***

Sooooooooo, suffice it to say, if you want my advice and you weren't just being rhetorical, well, I'd just call Farmer Brown and ask if he realized he sent you 6 onions instead of 4.

Ino, ino. . . .I am a dork, but it's ingrained within me and I can't hide it. But then you already knew that about me.

Good luck with the onions and estimated wait time on the lettuce. Should definitely be worth it, eh?




***definition excerpts taken from 'Dictionary.com'

Ian said...

Really? Damn.

Anonymous said...

Well, most likely he won't charge you. I believe he should not charge you. Afterall, (ahhhhem. . . .again) this was his mistake.

Ian said...

Ah, but these are very expensive onions. He won't charge us, but he would almost certainly want his delivery boy or Postman Joe to pick them up so he can sell them to someone else.

Anonymous said...

That would be the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a very long time. That would be too much effort for two, if even the bestest onions in the whole wide world, onions.

But you're right, people are weird;i If even, slightly overprotective of expensive onions.

Ian said...

Two metaphorical onions, remember. What if he sent 6 elephants instead of the 4 we had ordered.

There's such a thing as elephant farmers, right?

Anonymous said...

Then you'd have 2 additional 1-ton animals to feed than the original 4 mouths you bought.

You're getting more expensive. . . .

Ian said...

Yeah, but I can definitely use the 2 extra elephants. Especially these days with all the tree trunks I need to move.

Anonymous said...

Tell me about it. I have a plumber coming tomorrow b/c of all the tree roots growing into my plumbing tubes. . . . ohhhh the joys of home ownership!

Anonymous said...

In answer to the original question, I wouldn't drive anywhere to buy a few onions and a lettuce. I mean that's clearly ridculous. Now that I realise the onions are metaphorical (as presumably is the lettuce) the whole situation seems to make more sense. I think you should phone Farmer Brown, tell him about his mistake with the onions and politely enquire as to how much of a good-will discount he's going to offer you for the inconvenience of not being able to deliver the lettuce when promised and lumbering you with extra onions that you didn't order. Keeping the onions would be morally wrong and would no doubt leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

Ian said...

Dang, just my luck to have a bunch of goody-two-shoes friends with perfectly functioning moral compasses.

Anonymous said...

Are we talking about expensive things like a table and chairs? If we are then I would own up and give back the extra items. I would kick butt about not getting the table in time though. I HATE getting mucked about by shops, and it seems to happen to us quite a lot! We boycotted B&Q for ages after we got a sink with a fault. Keep us posted!

Anonymous said...

So . . . . .what did you end up doing? ? ? Inquiring minds want to know!

Anonymous said...

Bruv, first of all, I want to apologise for not seeing this post sooner, you know I'll come good for ya!

Of course you should keep the two onions, Farmer Brown probably puts a 100% mark up on his onions anyway and you know he probably doesn't grow them himself, he gets them from the MegOnionCorp of Shin Hua Xang Zu, where 12 year old girls work their fingers bloody for sixpence an hour.

Think of it as payback for the long drive, Farmer Brown needs to get involved in some sort of Farmers' Sunday market.

You know it's the right decision.

Ian said...

Finally! Thanks bruv, okay, we're keeping quiet about the onions for now. If Farmer Brown happens to mention them when delivering the lettuce then he can have them back. Otherwise...they're ours.

Vikki, in your situation, B&Q definitely owe you extra onions for the inconvenience.