Over the holidays, I received a box of fancy, chocolate-covered strawberries. No ordinary fruits, these. As I opened the box, I ogled a dozen beauty queens, impossibly plump and tarted up for the holiday season.

I read the gift message and proceeded to dig in. First, I sampled one of the dark chocolate variety, which was bittersweet, rich and smooth. The berry itself was respectable, too, until I reached the upper third. And there was the rub: The bright red had soured into a pale green, unripeness spoiling the whole effect. A second strawberry was equally wan. 

I thought of my friend, Emily, at the other end of the transaction, hoping to please with this decadent treat. Surely, she hadn’t meant to send a dazzling dud of a gift.

Should I simply thank her for a clever, generous present, or share my critique, as well?

So began an inner debate on the ethics and etiquette of such a predicament: If you order from a company based on its stellar reputation, and the recipient politely thanks you for a defective gift, then the firm’s reputation goes unchallenged, and you (mistakenly) think you’ve succeeded. The firm, perhaps unwittingly, continues to ship unripe berries, and buyers continue to purchase the product because no one bothered to tell the truth. A losing proposition all around.

Indeed, I had planned to tell Emily of the problem, but only after it had been resolved. First, I wanted to give the berry company, with its much-touted guarantee, a chance to rectify the situation. Two days later, a new box of chocolate-dipped strawberries arrived. Though the company had failed on the first go-round, its customer service excelled. Still, the second parcel was not without issues. A ruptured coolant pack had soaked every layer of cushioning down to, and including, the berries. 

But that’s a different story, for another time.

As luck would have it, Emily asked for an honest report on the product, claiming that she was doing research. She wanted to know if such outsized fruit could possibly have much flavor. I allowed that bigger is definitely not better in the world of strawberries, and that ripe is preferable to the unready product I received. I then thanked her for a terrific gift idea that proved more fruitful for discussion than eating.

— Joan Silverman is a writer in Kennebunk. Her work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News.