Keep it in the BOX!

Culture Clash #119

I finally went shopping at Dirk last night and got my filling of Fruit n' Fibre cereal (mmm), kiwis, chicken breast, magere milk and really cheap giant apples! Dirk is great cuz there are always "sales" (Sofie is going to kill me for always saying food is 'on sale' cuz somehow thats a term that shouldnt' be applied to edibles, hehe). Anyway, I love browsing through what's on sale, usually there is some sort of apparel in the front, ranging from fleece shirts to puffy vests, and some shamees for cleaning things, etc. Last night, there were paint rollers and white paint, and even tho I have absolutely no need for that, it was so cheap I almost considered buying it. Hehe.

Anyway, I got to the produce section and normally I pick up a bag of Royal Gala apples (a whopping 2,49 euros per bag) but this week, they were selling giant red apples in 3 KG boxes for only 1,79 euros!! I was ecstatic so I grabbed a box with me. It turned out to be really awkward to carry, cuz I already had a red basket and a purse and a backpack, so I took all the 12 apples out of the box and put them into two plastic bags, thinking it really didn't matter cuz the cashier could recognize the different kinds of apples, esp while knowing that they were on sale this week.

I get into the checkout line, and soon it's my turn. The Turkish/Moroccan (I still can't tell the difference) girl sweetly says "Goede avond," with a smile, and proceeds to DOOT my items one by one. She finally gets to my bags of apples, and the look of confusion appears on her face. She glares at me and says "blahblahblah?? (something in Dutch)" and I go, "huh?". Turns out, she needed the box that carried the apples in order to scan the code through, and without it, she didn't know what kind of apples they were, let alone their price.

To me, my first reaction was, "What the hell, memorize your codes, woman. Look how disabled you've become when you dont' have one measly sticker for the apples! It's reduced you to merely a scanner of stickers!" but my anger actually turned out to be a cover for my shame and embarrassment for taking the apples out of their box (How could I have known!?!!?!). Everyone behind me was of course pissed off at me for doing that, since there were at least 5 others in line behind me. It took at least 3-4 minutes before the cashier's colleague got the code for her, and then, finally I got to pay and leave.

So ya.. from now on, no more removing things from their boxes, and if I did it the next time I'd make sure to take the sticker w/ me. You see, in Canada, produce people know their produce codes! It's quite difficult cuz there are so many kinds of apples, vegetables, etc and you definitely need to know how to recognise them without the help of stickers, usually! So I wont be expecting that level of skill from any Dutch cashier from now on... Nice to know, nice to know...