The Supermarket

Well, it's been a while. But recent events nearly force me to write about an entirely German experience: going to the supermarket.

If you thought that Germans maintain a civil society, you're right. Unless they're grocery shopping. Then anything goes. The past couple times I was at the grocery store, events happened that I can no longer keep bottled up! Sharing is cleansing.

Browsing the shelves at the local Berlin supermarket, I pause at the chips. Corn chips, a (expensive) rarity in a country an ocean away from their origin. I already have guacamole at home. Now just some chips to go with them. But should I get them here? I know they're cheaper at another store. But guacamole will go bad, and mine is already opened, and tomorrow is Sunday: supermarkets closed. It's now or nev--...Monday. Well, just how big is this bag of chips? Looks can be deceiving. I move closer to the chips, abandonding my position on the opposite side of the aisle, where I had been standing at an appropriate distance so that others could pass by if they wished.

Hmm, this bag of chips is actually much smaller than it looks. I think I will just wait til Monday. As I am setting the bag back on the shelf, a woman approaches from the left side, brushes against me, and silently reaches in front of me with her right hand to grab a bag of barbeque chips on my right. !!! A thought flashes through my head. I'll just follow her until she stops to pick something up off the shelf, then I'll run up and grab something on the other side of her! But not today.

There's only one checkout line open when I'm ready to go. So, I line up behind the folks in front of me. There must already by five or six in line, and I'm well behind the "aisle" at the check-out line, sort of floating out in that nebulous space behind the registers. But there's already six or seven people lined up behind me now, too.

Suddenly there's another associate at the neighboring register. She calls, "I can help you over here!" I start to slide over to the next aisle when out of the corner of my eye I catch movement. Eyes wide with adrenaline, mouth gasping for oxygen, a woman TWO PLACES IN LINE BEHIND ME is crouched low over her cart and careening for the first place in the newly opened line. I never saw a cart swing around like that! Before anyone even had the chance to gasp, she was at the front of the line, the next three customers in line behind her filing up right after her. Move over, Andretti! Watch out, Jeff Gordon! Now we know how Michael Shumacher reached the top of the Formula One world!

At the orientation session last fall, we were told that Germans have a special way of "queing," as the Brits put it. I guess I've seen it. Some things, I think, I'll just never get used to.