A Matter of Principle: The Lettuce

Jim had recently retired from his job as a fireman.  He'd gotten out just in time.  His shoulders and his knees were playing up
and he was no longer lithe enough to climb ladders or carry people on his shoulders.
Firefighting is the most dangerous job in the world, after deep sea fishing.  He often expressed his thanks to the Lord, in
the hearing of his wife, Sandra, that he'd gotten out while he was still alive.

As a firefighter he had been useful to society and he'd been
rewarded for it.  He'd had a good salary,
he now had a good pension, and a nice house with a large garden and a few rabbits. 
His children had done well in school and were happily married. He was enjoying the pleasures of grandchildren. 
He wanted to continue to give something back.  He volunteered to work at the food bank three
days a week, five hours a day.  Most of
the time he worked at unloading trucks and stacking shelves, so that the poorer
members of his community could easily access what they needed.

At the end of every day volunteers looked at the 'best before...'
dates on all the food they had to hand out to see if it could be distributed
the following day.  If food would pass
the sell-by date before tomorrow at midday, the volunteers could take it home
with them.  But they had to pledge that
they wouldn't eat it.  This was because
some of the volunteers in the past had gamed the system by hiding
food away in the big refrigerator and taking it out at the last minute. They'd then said, 'This looks as if it's passed the 'best before' date. But it still looks good and it would be a
shame to waste it.  Does anybody mind if
I take it home with me?'

So now volunteers had to pledge that they wouldn't personally eat any food they took home with
them.

Jim arrived home with two large cellophane wrapped heads of iceberg
lettuce.  His 82 year old mother in law
was staying with them.  Every year she
came up from the country for three months and she brought her cat with her.

'That lettuce looks beautiful,' she said.  'Do you want me to wash it for dinner?'

'It's not for human consumption. 
It's for the rabbits,' said Jim.

'For the rabbits?' she said. 
'Why do you want to feed it to the rabbits?'

'It's a matter of principle,' said Jim.  'A few of the volunteers were cheating the
system. They were hiding stuff until it nearly passed its sell-by date so that
they could take it home with them and eat it themselves.  Not only does that deprive the poor in the
community of good food, it constitutes an abuse of a volunteer's position. So we all
pledged that if we did take home food we wouldn't eat it ourselves.  We'd just feed it to pets.'

'This country is going to the dogs.' She said to her daughter, 'Sandra
why don't you try and talk some sense into him?'

'Jim has to live by his principles,' said Sandra.

Sandra had been expecting this moment.  Every year her mother came to stay with them. The first month was always perfect, and then there always arose some incident
that sent her into a two-month long sulk or a sudden onset of ill-health.  Perhaps this was the incident.

'This is nonsense, Sandra. That lettuce is perfectly good. There are people in this country dying of
starvation and Jim says he's going to feed two perfectly good heads of lettuce
to the rabbits.  To my mind that's
nothing short of criminal.'

'That's where you're wrong,' said Jim. 'What would be criminal is if
I consumed that lettuce.'

'Explain to me why,' said his mother-in-law.

'Because I pledged not to eat it, or to let anybody else eat it,'
said Jim.

'Who's going to know if we eat it or not?'

'I'm going to know,' said Jim. 'As far as I'm concerned, that's the
end of the conversation.'

'No, that is not the end of
the conversation, young man.  If your
late mother realized how you are letting silly procedures rule your head, instead of your good sense, she would turn in her grave.  I refuse to spend another day in a house that
behaves in this wasteful way.

'No, Mum. Don't go yet!' said Sandra.  'You told me only this morning how much you
were enjoying yourself.  You and Jim were
getting on so well for a change.'

'Sandra I want you to drive me to the train station as soon as I've
packed my suitcase."

Sandra's mother left the room in a huff.

'Can't you see the damage you're doing with your principles? She's growing old, Jim.  She doesn't understand these new ways where
people prefer to give good food to animals rather than eat it themselves.  Why can't we just eat the damned lettuce?'

'I have to remain true to the principles I signed up to,' said Jim.

'Why don't you drive her to the train station?' asked Sandra.  'You could try to make it up to her on the
way there.'

'I'm not going to make anything up to her. In my opinion her daughter should drive her
to the train station. We don't even know
what time the next train is. My knees and my shoulder are hurting me and I don't
want to be hanging around for too long in the cold.'

'I'm not asking you to perform a duty, Jim.  I'm asking you to try to make amends to her.'

'What did I do wrong?'

'You sprung the story of the lettuce on her. You should have known
she would be shocked, at her age.'

'It's a matter of principle,' said Jim.

'What about if I nipped down to the store and bought a couple of heads
of lettuce? She'd be able to wash them, we could eat them, you could still feed
the other lettuce from the food bank to the rabbits, and she wouldn't be any
the wiser.'

'I can't play that sort of trick,' said Jim.

'Why not? Is it just because you don't want to give her the
impression that she's won?'

"No. It's because I don't want to give her the impression that she
can break the law and get away with it.'

'What are we talking about here, Jim?'

'We're talking about me being able to live with myself and sleep at
night.'

Sandra's mother came stumping down the stairs with her
suitcase.  She didn't come into the
living room.  Sandra and Jim heard her
dragging her suitcase and the cat basket to the front door.

'I'll drive you to the station, Mother!' shouted Sandra.

'And I'll go and feed the rabbits,' said Jim.

He heard the front door slam and the car motor start. He went into the kitchen and he tore the cellophane away from the
heads of lettuce.






©John J. Gaynard (2012)