trouble is my olive oil

I sprawled, but I never knew when I reached the floor. The fist with the weighted tube of nickels met me in midflight. Perfectly timed, perfectly weighted, and with my own weight to help it out.

I went out like a puff of dust in a draft.

--------------------
I sat still for about five minutes and then my pipe got too hot.

--------------------
"I always take champagne with mine," he said. "A third of a glass of brandy under the champagne, and the champagne as cold as Valley Forge. Colder, if you can get it colder."

----------------
I skinned through the door and made a fast break through the gap in the hedge and up the hill, half expecting lead to fly after me. None came.

I jumped into the Chrysler and chased it up over the brow of the hill and away from that neighborhood.

-----------------
We were sitting in a room at the Berglund. I was on the side of the bed, and Dravec was in the easy chair. It was my room.

Rain beat very hard against the windows.

-------------------------
She looked up and smiled and said: "How do you like the mountains?"
I said: "Fine."
"It's very quiet up here," she said. "Very restful."
"Yeah. Do you know anybody named Fred Lacey?"

----------------------
I went back towards the living room, stopped in the doorway to take another pleasant look around, and noticed something I ought to have noticed the instant I stepped into the room. I noticed the sharp tang of cordite on the air, almost, but not quite gone. And then I noticed something else.

------------- [excerpts, Trouble Is My Business / Raymond Chandler.]

One day, making my salad at work, head of my dept. told me some "extra virgin olive oil" isn't really olive oil, they put other kinds of oil, like maybe peanut oil or something in a bottle, & label it "extra virgin olive oil" because that sells because the health & fitness people often recommend it.

I was like, that's not fair, that's cheating, that's not Truth In Advertising. (Not even advertising -- labeling!)

Then read about topic on internet, promptly became more confused. Various opinions & assertions out there, but no "bottom line," it didn't seem like.

And then another co-worker told me the whole "maybe it isn't really ex. virg. olive oil unless it comes from CA and has a certain "seal" on the label"-'drama' is possibly cooked up to "scare" us into buying their particular kind of olive oil. (I now have the kind from CA, with seal, & dark bottle. ...as mentioned in some of the internet articles. ...)

Am disliking duplicity.
Fake olive oil.
Or -- a fake scare about fraudulent olive oil, to make us buy theirs.
I don't like it when they ("they") try to get us to buy something by scaring us. If their product is really good, they could sell it honestly without scaring people.

And thought of Raymond Chandler's classic mysteries, and wondered, what would his "first person" private eye (Mr. Carmady; Philip Marlowe...whomever) do about --
a) fake olive oil, &
b) fake stories about fake olive oil to try to trick us into buying their brand...How would he approach the issues?

-------------------------------

I sprawled, but I never knew when I reached the floor. The fist with the bottle of extra virgin olive oil met me in midflight. Perfectly timed, perfectly weighted, and with my own weight to help it out.

I went out like a puff of dust in a draft.

--------------------
I sat still for about five minutes and then my olive oil got too hot.

--------------------
"I always take olive oil with mine," he said. "A third of a glass of brandy under the olive oil, and the olive oil as cold as Valley Forge. Colder, if you can get it colder."

----------------
I skinned through the door and made a fast break through the gap in the hedge and up the hill, half expecting olive oil to fly after me. None came.

I jumped into the Chrysler and chased it up over the brow of the hill and away from that neighborhood.

-----------------
We were sitting in a room at the Berglund. I was on the side of the bed, and Dravec was in the easy chair. It was my room.

Olive oil beat very hard against the windows.

-------------------------
She looked up and smiled and said: "How do you like the olive oil?"
I said: "Fine."
"It's very quiet up here," she said. "Very restful."
"Yeah. Do you know anybody named Fred Lacey?"

----------------------
I went back towards the living room, stopped in the doorway to take another pleasant look around, and noticed something I ought to have noticed the instant I stepped into the room. I noticed the sharp tang of olive oil on the air, almost, but not quite gone. And then I noticed something else.

---------------------------------------------
--------------------------------

("And then -- I noticed something else."
That's why he's The Master.)

Trouble is my -- business.

-30-