DanielSonenberg.com

Let's face it - this is flat out disingenuous. Why give the price for half a pound? Is that a standard unit of measurement in our society? Do you ever wonder what the half pound rate of coffee, or lobster, or cherries, or pistachios is? Of course not. In fact, you're so used to seeing things priced by the pound that your assumption would be that any price on a sign would be per pound. Especially for a bulk item such as olives, that have sufficient heft and scrumptiousness to easily tempt you towards and beyond those standard sixteen ounces (unlike, say, chamomile flowers). The idea here is that Wild Oats, the criminal organization responsible for this noxious little placard, knows full well that $11.98 is an obscene amount to charge for olives, no matter how good they are. (Go to Zabar's in NYC and the olives are 5 or 6 bucks a pound. And sorry, they're better too. And even go around the corner to Hannaford's, whose perfectly delicious olives and pickled goodies are $6.99 A POUND). Wild Oats can't bring themselves to print the awful truth, so they soften the blow by giving you an irrelevant measure (which they obviously hope you'll confuse for the proper one). Why don't they just put up the price per 4.8 oz. or per bushel, or per stone? Hoodlums. And still I return. Why? Well, to paraphrase Beethoven, "that is the way with men. They are esteemed because they have not committed still greater faults."