Hmm, what was I saying?

After yesterday's post about our great neighborhood and the neighborly news, I thought you'd find it funny to hear this recent conversation that took place in the neighborhood.

Time & Place: a week ago on Saturday, when I took all of the girls with me to buy vegetables in our alley.

The girls and I had finished shopping and were slowly, very very slowly, headed home. Suddenly a nai nai (neighborhood grandmother) accosted me:

She: "Oh, you went by yourself to buy vegetables! Are those potatoes? Are they fresh?"

Me: "Yes, I bought potatoes. They seemed very fresh."

She: (imperiously) "How much did you pay for those potatoes?"

Me: (with some surprise) "One local dollar per pound." (about 16 cents).

She: (with great indignation) "They cheated you! Look how small those potatoes are!"

Me: "Umm....no problem!"

She: (even more indignant) "No one pays this much for potatoes! They should only have been 70 local cents per pound, or 80 cents per pound at the most! They knew you were a foreigner and cheated you!"

Me: "It's ok. I don't mind. This is still a good price." (thinking, good grief! In the US I could never buy beautiful new baby potatoes for this cheap!)

She: (with incredulous anger that I am not upset) "You should take them back! Look, these are small, bad potatoes. They just wanted to cheat the foreigner!"

Me: (somewhat hurridly) "Ok. No problem. I will ask them to make it cheaper next time. I must get my children home now. Good-bye!"

HA! I know she had good motives, but my goodness! Not even my husband questions my purchases like that! I guess when it comes to neighbors, you take the good, you take the bad . . . and you never know what you might run into in the alley! At least she didn't start telling me how it was too hot to take the kids outside, etc, etc. Our conversation was limited solely to produce, let us all be thankful for that!

P.S. The potatoes were, as I suspected, absolutely delicious. They were beautiful new potatoes, small, with very thin skin that I didn't need to peel, simply scrubbed well before quartering and boiling for a potato salad. I'm still loving the summer produce!