Ok, so I admit that this wasn’t necessarily the most routine
grocery shop, but it was an eventful one.
But first things first, Caitlin gets a little bragging
moment. The other night I made a
beautiful meal of rosemary and sweet basil chicken over a bed of pesto
pasta. For those of you who aren’t
familiar with my skills in the kitchen, let me enlighten you: I have none. Let's put it this way: I'd rather have a political debate in Arabic than touch a raw chicken breast. So the seemingly simple task is quite a feat
for me.
So the next night, I had a dose of kitchen karma. I had just come home from a long day
and wanted something quick and easy for dinner. A frozen pizza.
Perfect! I got out the personal
size frozen pizza, stuck it in the oven, and went to my room to check my
email. A couple minutes later my
room was literally full of smoke.
I ran into the kitchen to find my personal pizza charred to a
crisp. Literally, it could have
taken somebody out. What a tragedy.
So I went back over to the freezer to pull out another
frozen pizza, only to be disappointed that my last pizza was a burnt Frisbee in
the trashcan. Luckily the Más is
right across the street, so I put on my flip-flops, grab my wallet, and am out
the door. I should probably
mention that it is about 50 degrees outside and to Spaniards that means
earmuffs, wool coats, gloves, and scarves, so my cardigan and flip-flops
weren’t escaping the stares. But I was on a mission to get my pizza so I didn’t
really care.
I made a beeline to the frozen food section to pick out my
Bertolli’s jamón y queso pizza, but they were out of stock! How could they be
out of stock in my pizza emergency?!
After much contemplation as to whether or not I should get the usual
jamón y queso or try the new cuatro frommagio, I decided to go with the usual. After one failed pizza attempt, there
was no need to mix things up.
Pizza in hand, I walked up to the checkout to find only one
register open as usual. The
Spaniards like to take their sweet little time doing pretty much everything,
and checking out at any store is no exception. I was in line behind two elderly women and a little boy. But
the gem of a customer was the one being helped. A 50 (ish) pregnant woman, who was buying 12 liters of milk
(boxed…ew), and then she asked the woman at the register to label all of her
plastic bags for her. So before
she could bag her items, she had to have them sorted appropriately.
But the checkout process was not sped up with her absence,
the two elderly women in front of me couldn’t manage to even lift a bag of
chips up to the belt, so they had their 5 year old helper try. He couldn’t even see over the
counter. How illogical was their
thought process?! Anyway, I would
have offered to help because I was getting so impatient and could already taste
my perfectly cooked jamón
y queso pizza, but some other women comes to the rescue. And then she thought she could
cut the line. Umm, I don’t think
so, honey. I literally had one 2
euro pizza to buy and she had an entire basketful.
Just in general, I was hoping the two elderly women would
recognize the fact that I only had one item while they had an entire cart of
items and let me go ahead of them.
That’s how we do it in the US.
A guy has a gallon of milk and a bag of Tostidos: “go ahead, you only
have 2 things.” Apparently it’s
first come first serve in Spain.
So literally 20 minutes later, it was finally my turn. But as I was checking out there were
four American girls that walked up to the back of the line. They saw my flip-flops and, fulfilling
the stereotypical “obnoxious American”, they started talking about my
flip-flops. Little did they know
that I understood everything they were saying. I thought about saying
something, but I was so intent on eating my pizza that it wasn’t worth it. So
finally, I paid my 2 euros, and walked off with my hard won dinner.
I literally sat in front of the oven with the light on
watching my pizza cook, so we would avoid a repeat of earlier events.
What an event a burnt pizza can cause!
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