Dear Lotta, thank you for a fantastic meal and great conversation.
The end consumer was left wanting for nothing.
That was not the case earlier in the day, when I lunched at a big department store in Stockholm. Halfway through the roast beef with potato salad, I discovered a hair in my food. A dark, curly, rather short hair. You want no kind of hairs in your food, but believe me, this is the kind you want the least.
In disgust, I threw it away. Then looked at my plate and to my huge anger discovered I was still hungry and had lots of food left. Tarnished food. I was just about to complain when I realized the evidence was missing, somewhere on the floor. Surely, faced with the hair, the restaurant would make this up to me!
I had to climb down under the table, something I'm not proud of, but that's how determined I was. I was Elaine. I was Larry David. I was Lemon, all rolled into one desperate character looking for vindication. But that wasn't the only thing I was looking for.
Crawling around on the floor, I had horrible thoughts of someone asking exactly what I was looking for and if they could perhaps help me in my search.
"Did you lose something?"
"Yes! Or I didn,t but you see I'm trying to find a rather short and curly hair, in fact I'm searching for a pubic hair. The chef's pubic hair to be exact. Please help me find it"
That, thank GOD, did not happen.
In the end, my lunch date found the hair. I placed it, in all its glory, on the white rim of my plate. Then went up to the counter and whispered, as to not crumble the place's reputation in one fell swoop: "There's a hair in my food...a...special kind of hair...". Nudge nudge.
The lady at the counter looked at the food, but her reaction was not the shock I expected. She acted like this was the kind of thing that might happen every now and then. The chef and the bus boy acted similarily blase and offered me some new food. No apology. None.
I'm still surprised at this. Two women standing behind me were the only ones offering the kind of reaction I was looking for: "THAT'S SO GROSS! YOU ARE BEING WAY TOO KIND AND UNDERSTANDING".
Indeed I was. I left hungry and in search for something great.
When you've crawled around on the floor in search of someone else's pubic hair, no dignity is left. All you want is coffee on the house, a full lunch refund and perhaps a new face/ identity.
I was offered neither.
-the upset end consumer
