Before coming to France, I considered having to wait more than 15 minutes at the grocery store check out to be about 14 more minutes than necessary. But now it seems that a 15 minute wait is more or less average.
This morning, due to a lack of work this week, I decided to wake up slowly, putter around the apartment for an hour or two before heading to the local supermarket which is one metro stop away. Though the metro service was stopped, I decided a 20 minute walk wouldn't be so bad (but I didn't count on it still being stopped when I finished because a 20 minute walk with lots of groceries is kinda unpleasant).
During my ritual standing around in the supermarket check-out this time, I was stood behind a middle aged guy who, I couldn't help but notice, was only buying cheap wine and beer. I looked down at my giant bag of chocolate pastries and thought, well... To each his own, amirite? He stood with his arms crossed, looking around, tapping his foot -- all signs pointing to: I need to buy this booze, people. I gots places to be, more important places than you!
As we stood waiting, he continued to sway on his heels, look at his watch and sigh a little too heavily. But, when it came to his turn... Well, how the tables do turn. After scanning all of his booze, the cashier glared up at him and asked for his supermarket card. The man, smiling now, puts his hand in his back pocket and pulls out a piece of gum wrapped in silver foil. He unfolds the gum carefully, taking his sweeeeeeeet motherfucking time, all the while smiling at this cashier who is glaring at him like:
He folds the gum into his mouth, crumples the gum wrapper and slides it into his pocket, now enjoying this moment a little too much. I look at the cashier and I can see her giving this guy a serious grimace. The man, meanwhile, digs into his pockets and brings out a keychain stacked with cards and keys out the wazoo, looking carefully for the blue and red Carrefour card, then handing it slowly over to the woman who swoops it out of his hand, scans it, and almost chucks it back at him.
"10.90 is your total, sir."
He looks at her, and pauses before digging back into his pocket for.... Wait for it... His checkbook and passport. At which point I'm like, oh boy. And he starts carefully making his check out while me and the other people in line are like:
Who writes checks at supermarkets anymore, you turd! I can see the guy behind me, both arms pushed against the carousel looking down and shaking his head. Oh boy, oh boy, shit's gettin' tense here.
When the grumpy cashier finishes putting the check in and out of the machine half a dozen times, I realize the man has done nothing during this time -- including bag his stuff (because in France, you bag your own shit, asshole!). He hikes up his pants, looks at me a little smugly, and then carefully smooths out his reusable bag to fill it up, forcing the cashier lady to wait to start to check out my items so as not to mix them up. At long last, he's finished and the woman says to him, "thank you, sir. goodbye." And the turd picks up his bag, says nothing and walks away.
In France, when you leave a store after having purchased something, you say "merci, au revoir." Always. No exceptions, because people will think you're asshole if you don't. Which is exactly what I suspect happened consequently.
But there's icing to this story! As I was walking out of the grocery store, I saw the turd again as I was about to go into the metro (which, as I was about to find out, was still not running) and he was coming out. He wasn't paying attention because there was a large group of people massing around the bus stop so he bumped into me pretty hard -- and me, instead of having a normal, reasonable reaction, which would have been to say, "hey, watch it!" I instead said, "ah, excusez-moi monsieur! Pardon!" Regretting it pretty much immediately.
I'll let you guess what he said to that.
Assholes.
No comments:
Post a Comment