Driving home today I realized how much I hate the person I become when I do my shopping at Carrefour. No doubt, the giant grocery chain has the most selection around and probably the best prices. Its like a giant super Target… you can buy toys, motor oil, luggage, a refrigerator, a television set, and food all in one place. I wont call it convenient, because that it isnt. But its all under one roof.
People at Carrefour go there and become the most self-absorbed humans trodding the planet. They push your cart out of the way. The push the cart into whoever happens to be unfortunate enough to be in its path. They push you out of the way. I found myself pushing into people today because there was no other way to get past them. No one apologizes. No one cares. Its just par for the course. They restock the shelves in the middle of the day which means putting big piles of boxes in the middle of the aisles while the stock person stands in the way of whatever it is youre trying to get to. Id think they read my list and move in front of whatever they see written down, except that my lists are all written in English.
I once bought cheddar cheese there. They keep it behind the counter of the cheese section, as if its a delicacy. So you have to ask for it. When I did the woman working there had no idea what I wanted because I said cheddar instead of sheeeeah-daaah or however youd say it with a French accent. It wasnt even that good; Ive skipped it ever since.
Although I encountered the rudest of all today in the produce section. You have to get your fruits and vegetables weighed there in that department… get to the cashier with an unweighed bag of carrots and youre in big trouble (you then either have to run the bag of carrots back to the guy at the scales, holding up the inevitably long line behind you, or just ditch the carrots all together). So I was standing at the little weigh station today with several things that needed to sit on the scale and this man hovered his bag of green beans over my scale… so I actually started sliding my next item on as I was removing the weighed item… the way Indiana Jones slid that bag of sand onto the pillar holding the golden statue. There was another scale no one was using; he could have easily gone there. Or he could have asked. But finally he caught me with my back to the weighing process getting the next item out of my cart and he took my food off the scale so he could put his on!
I know I pay more when I go to the stores that are nothing but produce stores or when I go to the butcher for steaks and pork chops. But I dont care. Its worth any price to not become one of those people who shops at Carrefour.
This made me laugh most of the way through. Sorry that one of your rotten experiences in France evokes humor, but your writing style is still enviable and such a delight.
I’m actually working on my website today and just wrote a bit about rude French waiters and realized I hadn’t looked at your blog in a while, so I laugh at your post, laughing in a way that only someone who has shopped in Europe would.
Today, some woman who was in the way got all huffy when my backpack purse bumped into her. She said “pardon!” like I had just nearly knocked her Waterford crystal shopping cart into a pile of glass on the floor. I quickly thought “how do I fit in?” and ignored her.