Sure, you all remember Forrest Gump and his infamous quote to paraphrase “Handsome is as handsome does.” It simply means do not judge ones intelligence by their looks, but by their actions.

So I confess, I probably took a stupid action two weeks when I gave into unrelenting sales pressure from a couple of pros.

Two guys in a pickup truck with a box in the back that kind of looked like the refrigerated boxes DVMs have in their pickup boxes to keep meds safe were parked in my driveway as I came home.

These guys had boxes of frozen pork, beef, chicken and seafood products. Each box contained 8-12 cryovac packages of a specific cut of meat or poultry. I told them I was not interested, liked what I bought at my local grocery. Then the hard selling started.

“This beef and pork are all organic. No antibiotics or hormones ever. The chicken is all free range, and, of course, no hormones or antibiotics ever used. See. The breasts are smaller.”

I had no intelligent response form in my brain.

“Our meat and poultry is all locally grown.”

I said, “makes no difference if it is all frozen.”

“Our animals are all happy, free roaming and their welfare is our utmost concern.”

I asked, “How many chickens do you lose on a weekly basis to foxes, coyotes and eagles.”

Silence.

“Organic is safer and healthier.”

I said, “that is questionable at best, and I won’t pay one dime more for organic or free range.”

“Ah, but we won’t charge you one dime more for any of our products compared to your local grocer. In fact if you buy one case of beef and pork products (that would be six boxes, each containing 8-12 cuts of meat) we will throw in a case of combined chicken and seafood products for free. And get this, sir, all this meat has been inspected by the USDA.”

I said, “I should hope so. To sell it otherwise would be illegal.”

“Maybe, but there are shysters out there that sell meat and chicken door to door that has not been inspected and therefore is not safe to consume.”

I should have gone in the house right there. Stupid is as stupid does. Were these guys super salesmen, or super stupid?

“Sir, it is Friday evening. We are done with our deliveries for the week and we still have this meat left, so we will knock another 25 percent off if you buy one case with a second thrown in for free.”

I advised them “It is frozen. You can sell it next week.”

“We will throw in a box of salmon also.”

I bought it. But I got a really bad feeling when the guy advised me to leave the “Pay To” line blank.

The chicken was free range all right. It is a little tough and stringy. And the breasts weren’t uniform in size, making cooking to 165 a touch more difficult. I had never really appreciated the conventional push for all breasts to be uniform, even if it means injecting with salt water.

The Salmon had no skin attached and the filets fell apart on the grill. But the pork chops are small enough we can each eat one, as opposed to splitting a bone-in chop as we do with conventional.

Now, if I can just get this digestive tract situation under control....

Stupid is as stupid does

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