One Store's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Just ask. It doesn't hurt and the worse thing that can happen is you get a no. Tonight I went to the store for some tomatoes, cilantro, and some fruit. As usual, the produce clerks were working the racks and in this instance pulling off tomatoes that had gone bad.

The clerk was a nice young man who evidently was making attempts to learn the English language but hadn't made it to fluent. He was making more progress than I because the only word I knew in Spanish was El Pollo... Chicken. After several seconds of hand gestures, his broken english, and my one word, I was able to communicate to him what I wanted. I've asked clerks in the past for their rotting produce and gotten the standard no and go away, but this guy was especially helpful and pleaded my case before the manager on the next isle. The answer was yes!  Total booty- 15 lbs of ripe tomatoes.

I threw some in to the coop tonight as soon as I got home, about 7:45 at night. You'd better believe that one of the few things that will pull a chicken out of the coop after she's gone in is a beautiful red ripe tomato. They were in heaven, the landfill's slightly less full, my wallet has a few extra bucks in it, and I'm sure I'll get red eggs from my girls tomorrow. Everyone wins! -Jason