John and I
decided to add a little extra excitement to our weekend on Saturday. No, we
didn’t go skydiving or wrestle with alligators. We did something much more adventurous.
We went to the
grocery store later in the afternoon.
Yes, you
might want to sit down for this. I will explain.
We usually
go to the store in the morning after the market, but this weekend we decided to
skip the market and go to the store later in the day. I told you, this is
crazy.
Shopping in
France is different than shopping in the US for many reasons, the least of
which being that we have to bring our passports to go to the grocery store. And
the most annoying differences were in full force this weekend. These both
happen routinely in the morning as well, but not nearly to the same extent.
Exhibit A
People are
HORRIBLE about blocking the aisles. See someone you know? Please stop to chat
in the middle of the aisle. Looking for something on a shelf? You just leave
your cart wherever is most convenient for you. Is someone else already stopped
on the side of an aisle? You should definitely park your cart next to theirs so
no one else can get through.
These
people were not in the middle of moving their cart. It was like this when we
got to the aisle while they were looking at something else a few feet away.
Rather than parallel parking, they are perpendicular parking. There is a reason
this is an unknown term.
Exhibit B
Grocery
stores here run out of food. Routinely. Could be veggies, cereal, meat, canned
goods, anything. That’s part of the (not) fun of shopping here; you just never
know what will or will not be in stock.
The bottom shelf is where they keep the chicken. Lesson
learned: don’t plan two meals around chicken without a vegetarian Plan B.
Also, next time John takes a picture of an empty chicken shelf, I am going to be there to see the looks he gets from other customers.
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