Over two months in and I have to say it is the grocery store that causes me the most grief. I love fruits and vegetables. The problem is I don’t know how to buy them.
A week back I put some oranges on the store conveyer belt. Not a big deal – right? At home in Canada they just weigh those suckers for me, enter in how much I owe and I am on my way.
Not here.
The cashier stopped, examined my oranges and said something to me at warp speed in dialect riddled German. I am completely clueless except that there is a problem with the oranges and she is not very happy with me. Everyone around is now watching and wondering how the orange issue is going to turn out. The cashier continues to stare at me as she picks up the phone to call someone.
Excellent. She was calling back up. This wasn’t going to get embarrassing at all.
At this point I declared that I no longer wanted the oranges while at the same time pausing to scan the rest of conveyer belt for any other possibly awkward produce moments. Fortunately the rest of my selection was straight forward.
Days later I share my produce story with a fellow at work. Being ever so helpful, he launched into the most complicated explanation of how I must select, weigh and tag my produce prior to the till. At the end of my verbal tutorial he decided that these produce machines were in fact so incredibly complicated that I should make every effort to avoid them. After his explanation I was inclined to agree.
