Okay! I'm Back!

First things first:

Living life after the Great Computer Debacle of 2008 has been tough.

It's like it's New Year's, without the big party. You know how when January arrives you have all these ideas and lists of things you’re going to do to be more organized, be a better person, stop shame eating…you get the picture. Well, I’m doing those things now. Two whole months early. So when you all silently pledge to start a comprehensible filing system for emails, I’ll be WAY ahead of you.

Being in a resolution-y sort of mood, I promise:

To no longer dwell on my dead computer.
To bond with my impostor (er, replacement) laptop.
To focus on all of the good that has come out of this: learning to back-up my work.
(Somehow, this revelation lacks the comfort I'm looking for.)

Moving on:

The weather this past weekend was glorious! Time absolutely had to be spent outside. Mix that time with good friends, yummy food and drinking, and you’ve got yourself a weekend made in heaven.

On Saturday, we met friends we haven’t seen in a while at a winery. They are one of those fun couples. We have tons of stuff in common, including zero children, a fondness for drinking and a love of (expensive) good food. So we packed up a picnic and headed for the country.

My friend’s husband is a big researcher-type. He's always Googling and finding crazy things online. Like clogs with spikes on them he wore to aerate his lawn. Or these new potato chips from England. Or blue-footed chickens (apparently not worth the hype and hefty price tag).

So when he was telling us about this “honor system” fish market, as much as I wanted to doubt him, I knew that somewhere, this place existed.

And who would have thought that it existed here in Connecticut? Right down the street from where we were.

An honor-system fish market? This I had to see.

First of all, only in Sleepytown, CT would a place like this even exist. (Although I imagine there are many places in the very nice mid-west where there’s no crime and really trust-worthy people where establishments such as this could be on every corner.)

Second, this place can probably run on the honor system, because nobody would be able to find it.

We pull up to a small wooden building on a side (read: dirt) road. The building is smaller than a garage, with a little covered porch. Situated on the porch are two huge freezers. (they're like ice cream freezers, but for adults. Oh, and they’re filled with fish).

On one shelf there’s a calculator and on another, there’s a credit card machine.

Basically, you pick out your fish, add up the price, swipe your credit card, then put the signed receipt in the mail slot. Oh, and if you’re paying cash, there’s a little basket filled with money (actual bills, people) in one of the coolers for making change.

I could have taken every package of scallops, calamari and tuna out of there and hit the road without leaving a cent.

(But I didn’t. I have morals.)
(Plus, my friends would have been witnesses.)

I think this honor-system thing could really catch on. Maybe we can eliminate the need for humans altogether when it comes to buying stuff. Like I could go to Macy’s, where there are zero employees working, try on a bunch of stuff, scan the tickets of the items I want, place my purchases in a nice shopping bag, swipe my card and be on my way. No interrupting the gum-smacking teenager from her uber-important texting to ring me up. No making small talk with said I’m-too-good-for-this-job employee. No witnessing the embarrassed/annoyed face she makes when asking me if I’d like to save 10% and open up a store card.

This just might work.