You’re probably thinking “what on earth does she have to say about salmon?” Well you are right, it is a weird title for my post, but here it goes.
Today at my final shift at WSCAH, one of the proteins offered was salmon. Usually in the basket of canned proteins, or meats, there is tuna, chicken, and sardines. Today there was also salmon — and it was a hot commodity!
I was so confused. Why did so many people want this can of salmon? Was it because the pantry never offers it? Or do people just really love salmon? Well, about 90% of the customers asked for salmon. I made my first mistake with the salmon today with the first customer. I guess it was better to make it in the beginning and fix it but boy did I mess up. So the rule is for canned items, its a 2 for 1 deal. So if a person chooses tuna, they get two of the little cans. I did not put two and two together that since the salmon came in a big can (probably around the same amount as two tuna cans), this means the customer only gets one can of salmon. When I was handing the second can to a lady, one of the other volunteers reached out and grabbed by arm and was like “No no no! Only one can of salmon!” and put the can back. Then when the customer walked away, Monique, the other volunteer, whispered in my ear “Be careful. People get really sneaky when it comes to salmon and will try to steal extra ones.” After that, I made sure not to make any mistakes when it came to the salmon.
Serving salmon today spurred a memory of mine. Most of the customers at this site spoke Spanish, and would pronounce salmon in Spanish, and it sounded like “sal-min.” This immediately made me think of a time in kindergarten or some time in elementary school when my classmates and I were drawing in class using Crayola crayons and one of the kids asked me to pass the salmon colored crayon. He pronounced the L when saying it, like “sal-min” and as the obnoxious, know-it-all child I was, I immediately corrected him. “No, silly! You don’t prnounce the L, its silent! ‘saamen'”.
So, that is what I have to say about salmon.
