another trip to the grocery

Today I tried a new grocery store. Annie was at a birthday party at an indoor kid's play place, so after I picked her up I went to a new grocery store because it was in the same mall.

Annie wanted to ride in the cart, so I lifted her to ride in the big part. As we entered the store, the security guard stopped me. He taped up my bag from a previous store. Then he handed me the blue cloth thingies we always get at doctor's offices, museums, the preschool, and other public places that allow you to wear shoes as long as you cover them. I looked around, and no one else had the blue cloth thingies on. Through our Tarzan-speak and hand motions, I realized that Annie needed to put them on because she was sitting in the shopping cart. It was completely fine for me to wear my dirty shoes throughout the store, but since Annie was placing her feet where food would go, she had to wear them. Once I finally figured out who was supposed to wear them and why, I put them over Annie's flip flops (which was an awkward fit). The security guard was happy, and I was allowed to proceed. I just smiled and said, "Sorry, we're foreigners." Nothing like stating the obvious.

The trip got even more interesting when we got to the check-out counter. I had enough groceries to last our family of six for a week. After the cashier rang up everthing and I bagged it, there was a problem with the register. After calling two supervisors, I had to take all the food out of the bags and let her ring it up a second time. She did so, but again when it was time to give the final tally, there was a problem at the register. She consulted her two supervisors again, and she explaining to me a lot of things I didn't understand. I just knew she could not finalize the bill yet. So, for the third time she didn't make me unpack my bags, but she took the old receipt and entered every singe item by typing in the bar code number. Abby, Annie, and I sat there and ate the very rare find of donuts ($2 a piece). I offered one to the cashier to lighten things up for her, but she refused. After she entered every single bar code number of every single item in my cart, I was able to pay. However, she was not finished.

At this point, a friend of mine who knows the language very well showed up (I love small towns of 6 million and little run-ins like this). She translated and said there was a problem with the register and the juice boxes. The cashier then had to ring up one juice box at a time, finish each transaction, watch the money drawer open, and then close it. She repeated this action about 30 times. Then I paid her the total sum for the juice boxes.

I think I was at this one register for around 45 minutes.

Annie still had on the blue cloth thingies over her flip flops, I had my 30 juice boxes -each individually transacted, and we merrily went on our way.