Sunday, October 31, 2010

Food Shopping: Addendum

First, I'd like to thank everyone who commented and/or shared the food shopping post. Clearly this is a topic which inspires passion and I am glad you found an outlet for that passion here. And yes, I publicly apologize for leaving off one of the most important items: Shoppers who leave their cart in the checkout line with a single stalk of celery, and then run around the store "finishing up."

Now for a true story. I had to get a bag of milk yesterday. I believe that running out for a bag of milk is the reason neighborhood makolets were invented, but I wasn't near one, and I was near a Shufersal. So I took a deep breath, thought some happy, speedy thoughts, and went in. Here's another thing about Shufersal, at least the one I go to - they tend to correlate the number of cashiers to the number of shoppers. Not so many shoppers = not so many cashiers. This way, you always have to wait a really long time in line, even if the only shoppers are you and one other person buying "just a stalk of celery."

Anyway, two nice ladies let me cut in front of them to buy my milk. (I figured if there is such a thing as shopping karma, I was owed, because I'm pretty good about letting people cut ahead of me.)

The person in front of them was almost finished. Great, I thought. Until....she was doing delivery! NOOOOOOO! And they had a long, drawn-out discussion about the address, then the kupait left (!) to get some dry ice, then she asked the customer - and I am not making this up - "Rechov Sivan. Is that one vuv or two?"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? As if the delivery guy is going to be calling headquarters in a panic, "I'm in front of Sivan 33, but there is only ONE vuv! Is this the right one? I dunno. Maybe I should drive around for a while and see if there is a double-vuv Sivan."

And yes, the people in the line next to me, who were still shopping when I got in line, were blithely finishing their bagging and heading out the store. I swear they smirked at me.

7 comments:

Arica said...

After unloading my cart at Yesh today the woman in front of me announced delivery! I thought of you!

OneTiredEma said...

Super Kayzer. Never lets you down.

MOMZWIFEOFDADZ said...

I thought of you today, Gils, when DADZ and I got in the "expert traveler" line at the airport. You don't notice until too late that it says, in fine print, "expert travelers and families with small children/handicapped." Now who in the heck would think of putting those two groups together?

So there we were, smugly looking at all the other loser passengers who were not 'experts' like us and lo and behold in front of us was a group of young couples with very small children, one of whom was having a temper tantrum. She would not walk through the screening device by herself. And the brilliant TSA woman, highly trained of course, would not let the father hold her. This went on for 5 minutes.

When it was our turn, we heard "EXCUSE ME" and an airport person wheeled THREE old ladies in front of us. we had to wait while he asked, 'can you take off your own shoes?' and they said, "WHAT?", etc. then 'can you stand up by yourself?' "WHAT?," you get the picture.

THEN I get double "patted down" (eww, let me just say that), because apparently the dry cleaning solvent on my clothing showed up as "explosive material" on their scanner.

Thank you for letting me vent. I'm done now. Carry on with the funniness about shopping.

Gila Rose said...

ahhhh...super kayzer. I was wishing for some good old SK during my line-waiting.

Arica, I'm worried now that every time someone has a horrible shopping experience, they're going to be like, "And I thought of you!"

Momz - Wow. Just, wow. See, it's not only the flights to israel that can make you miserable....

faith/emuna said...

if you go to the kupat rashit in supersol and complain they usualy open a new line. (then of course you got to get there first) also some branches will let you pay in cash at the kupat rashit if you only have one or two items (that do not require weighing) esp if they do not have an express line.
benji at what war zone wrote about a similiar expereince at mr zol or something.
momz what makes someone an expert traveler? i can understand frequent flyer but what is an expert traveler - someone who packs really effeciently? takes only one pair of shoes, and packs a change of underwear and toothbrush in his carry on?

Kathleen said...

Very interesting and funny post! I may have to put a notebook together with all of these tips. I also thought Momz comment/story about their airport encounter qualified as a guest post in the comment section. Just how young do they have to be to get into the "expert line"? Is 4 and up too old already?

MOMZWIFEOFDADZ said...

Kathleen and Faith/Emunah - I think by "expert" they mean "you know that you have to take your shoes off and walk through the stupid metal detector and put your laptop in a separate bin and you don't ask dumb questions that take up everyone's time." I think they gotta go to Plan B.