“All the desert pupfish in the world weigh less than a Filet-o-Fish sandwich”—Elizabeth Kolbert, Under a White Sky
I still order my groceries on line. A man or woman from Instacart delivers them, essential workers paid next to nothing. I tip 20%, then give another tip when Philippe or Maya drops the dozen plastic bags at the door. I order for two weeks at a time, so the trip is worth their while.
Yesterday I found a bag among the apples and eggs and Comet that wasn’t mine. I tried to alert the two women who brought them, but after a delivery is complete they can’t chat with me on the app any more. I don’t know if they were shopping together for different customers, or if one was lonely and brought her sister or girlfriend for company. But in this bonus bag I found English muffins, bananas, and a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
The bananas I’d give to my neighbor. I’d freeze the muffins for a rainy day. But the sandwich was delicious. The fresh roll with sesame seeds hugged pink curls of ham against the Swiss, tender lettuce, and generous slices of tomato. I used my own mustard, thank you, no need for the little packets.
And I thought of the careful one who’d ordered groceries, expecting lunch. I pictured someone living alone—wouldn’t two sandwiches wrapped at the deli counter wind up in the same bag? It might be a man who couldn’t be bothered to fix his own, or a widow indulging in a treat— though I’ve perfected the art of roasting a chicken, sometimes I just want one off the rotisserie. I sensed the surge of disappointment whoever ordered the ham-and-cheese would feel.
And then I wondered if one of the delivery women had bought the food, intending to share it. I understood the literal bite behind the phrases, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and, “Those guys ate our lunch.” A hand invisible to me had paid for the sandwich, while I’d devoured what someone else expected. I hadn’t been more cunning, or alert, or prepared—just lucky, and the one without, unlucky. I was privileged in my power to pay a substitute to browse the aisles of Wegman’s during a pandemic; what about the one whose lunch I’d appropriated?
Some scales balance. Others never do. The machinery that drives a Filet-o-Fish to the freezer at McDonald’s shifts clouds from the desert, drying out small streams and marshes. One drunk can swim in a fissure named Devil’s Hole and crash an entire population of desert pupfish, stepping on the narrow limestone shelf where they breed. Some anonymous soul will forever be short the bunch of bananas, Thomas’s muffins, and ham-and-Swiss I garnered without merit or guile.