Dead Fish in a Box

The chronicles of a suburban fishpimp trying to keep it rural.

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Location: United States

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Aftermath

Dang, this hurricane thing is really screwing everything up. Something like 70% of the oysters consumed in the U.S. are produced in Louisiana. Well, since they up and exported their entire crop over the rainbow to Oz, the price of our lovely little Puget Sound oysters went up 30% overnight; and that’s on top of the increase we suffered after last year’s hurricanes knocked out all of Florida’s production. I’m wishing I was one of those eccentric oyster farmers right about now.

The Southern chicken farmers got totally wiped out – it’s like a Sonics game down there: “Floatin’ chickens in the barnyard!” Too bad chickens can’t swim. On top of that, there are freight-train cars full of fresh product, but the rails are torn up or submerged. I guess Mississippi is split down the middle with chicken farms on one half of the state and catfish farms on the other; the chicken guys got it bad. The good news is that our catfish suppliers didn’t suffer much from the storm. The bad news is that all of their employees are out of gas and can’t buy anymore for a while, so they’re unable to get to work to harvest the fish.

The price of gas isn’t helping anything either. All the seafood companies are thinking about adding fuel surcharges, we’re all waiting for the other guy to blink. I remember going through this when I worked at Airborne Express. No one wanted to be the first, no one wants to be the bad guy. It doesn't really matter, prices on all consumer goods are going up. Add to all this Back to School, Labor Day travel, Bumbershoot, and the Boeing strike and we're looking at a pretty weak start to September for Seafood sales.

In other news: Mrs. Fishpimp flew out of Nairobi today, so I’m into my final 24 hours of bachelorhood. Frankly, I’m ready to have her back. I need someone to cook for; I don’t cook for myself, and I’m tired of eating garden burgers & grocery store Chinese food. She’s been out chasing gorillas in Uganda with a friend of hers from the Peace Corps. The ironic/interesting/notable thing is that her friend is a PhD in public health and works for FEMA. Before she left Her boss told her that she should think about rescheduling her trip since there was a hurricane on the horizon. She laughed at him; one cannot simply reschedule gorilla-trekking permits, there’s only 35 or so a day for the whole world.

I don’t think either of them knew how bad Katrina was going to be.

I'm just glad the worst thing I've got to worry about is dead fish in a box

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