Christmas fish: the sequel

Back in early December I wrote about my mom's annual Christmas fish order. Let me tell you how things went this past Christmas.

I guess the first mistake was ordering by the piece, not the pound. In 2017 our order had been for forty-five pieces, approximately eight pounds. I guess we assumed that piece size would be uniform from year to year. It was not. In 2018, the pieces were more than 70% larger. Forty-five pieces weighted 13.78 pounds.

The next problem was the price. When my mom ordered, the price she wrote down was $5.99 a pound. If I had heard this, I would have told her that that was an exceptionally low price for cod, which is typically more like $7.99 a pound. I would have told her to confirm this price and write down the name of the person who had given it to her. That might have made a difference when my sister went to pick up the fist Christmas Eve and was told it would be $9.99 a pound. All 13.78 pounds of it.

My sister paid for the fish with her credit card, shocked at the price, which exceeded the cash she had taken to the store to pay for the fish. When she got home she looked at the slip that had been included with the fish, indicating that we had purchased 13.78 pounds of cod at $9.99 a pound, for a total cost of $137.66.

When she checked her credit card receipt, she realized she had been charged $37.66 for the fish.

So the next problem was how to set this right. Naturally, Christmas and New Year's were very busy and hectic holidays. Today after work was really the first opportunity to get back to the supermarket. I stopped at the customer service desk and quietly asked for a manager. When he arrived, I quickly summarized the issue, making sure to point out that I felt my mom had been misquoted the original price and that the final price was excessive. But, the bottom line was that I was there to sort out the bill and correct the error. The manager thanked me and accepted the $100 I had brought with me.

I don't know if we'll get our Christmas fish from the same place next year. But I do know that the ordering of the fish will be done differently.