December 2nd

Today I remembered why I avoid the grocery stores in Israel like the plague. It had been so long since I had last stepped into a grocery store (no, I am not starving myself I just choose to shop at the market instead) that I forgot what it is really like.

I didn’t have 5 NIS on me to “rent” a cart so I decided to carry my items instead, also proving to be rather difficult. But no matter, I had gathered my items and proceeded to the checkout lane. As I stood in line it all came back to me:

As I scanned the lines for the fastest checkout lane.. I had to look not for the lane with the most amount of people, but rather the one with the largest amounts of carts. Yes, it seems that immediately as soon as people enter the grocery store, they park their cart in the checkout lane, say “I am after you” and proceed with the rest of their shopping.

I decided the best course of action would be the “10 items of less” lane. This was more of a suggestion, as the little old lady in front of me placed her 30 items on the belt. The of course as she was about to check out, the cashier (like a good Israeli) starts to offer her all these deals, “do you want 4 muffins for 1 shekel? How about 3 bags of chips for 2 shekel? Maybe you want to take my teenager too… that’s free”.

Anyway, this whole process took about 5 minutes, of course I am next in-line (ever notice how it always happens when you are next in-line), until this lady made up her mind. Finally, I was able to pay and check out… as all my items were tossed  to the end and I then had to sift them out of the mix with the little old lady and bag them myself. Because let’s be honest, did you really think the cashier was going to bag my groceries?! If you did, you have learned nothing from my experience/blog.