The store managers thought differently, and it was always just a matter of time before someone was sent to stop him. The head of the produce department would arrive, and my father, his mouth full of food, would demand to be taken into the back room, a virtual morgue where unwanted food rested between death and burial. It seemed best to distance ourselves, and so we would pretend to be other people's children until our father returned bearing defeated fruits and vegetables that bore no resemblance to those he had earlier enjoyed with such abandon. The message was that if something is free, you should take only the best. If, on the other hand, you're forced to pay, it's best to lower the bar and not be so choosy.
Meat is supposed to be gray.
They doctor up the color for the ads and so forth, but there's nothing wrong with these. I've never known our father to buy anything not marked reduced for quick sale. Without that orange tag, an item was virtually invisible to him. Upon returning from the store, he would put the meat into the freezer, hide his favorite fruits in the bathroom cabinet, and stuff everything else into the crisper. It was, of course, too late for crisp, but he took the refrigerator drawer at its word, insisting it was capable of reviving the dead and returning them, hale and vibrant, to the prime of their lives.