Deli Math

I've recently taken to trying to order one third of a pound of certain cold cuts at the supermarket deli. A quarter often isn't enough and a half is too much. A third seems to fit our family's consumption quite well. But ordering a third of a pound certainly seems to throw a wrench in the works behind the deli counter. The people in deli management seem to have taught their hires only how to work in quarters, halves and wholes. Occasionally I get an enterprising person who knows that a third translates to roughly 0.33 pounds on the digital scale, but most of the time my request creates a small crisis as the poor clerk is forced to ask a co-worker how much a third is. It often takes two or three of the deli folks to figure it out if I don't intervene myself.

Waiting on line for cold cuts is boring. If there's any fun to be had it's in watching whatever small drama unfolds behind that counter while waiting for your number to be called. The search for a missing hunk of cheese, or the unpackaging of a new roast beef is always somewhat entertaining. So anyone who's paying attention to the deli stage would note the short math crisis behind the slicers. The clerk's poor math skills are suddenly on display for numbers 63 through 70 and for any nosey folks browsing the gourmet cheeses and olives.

So I get a pang of guilt every time my order causes such an exposure. But should I have to waste three slices of low sodium turkey breast (or worse, to come up short) to make the deli workers look smarter? I think not. I call on management to eliminate this painful interaction by better educating our deli workers in fraction to decimal conversion. I'm tempted to start ordering more complicated fractions, like a 2/3 or even 5/8 as a form of non violent protest, but that would truly be cruel, unusual, and sure to extend my time in line. Not to mention that my brilliant protest (which would surely make Ghandi and Dr. King proud) would most likely go unnoticed by the deli manager. Better to amuse myself by silently wondering what head cheese really is.