BUZZURRO

Today I went to the supermarket by my house.
I have written numerous posts about the dangers lurking in the supermarket near my house, but I need to eat, and since I don’t drive and this supermarket is near my house, I am drawn there. Like a moth to the flame.
I entered the store in the late afternoon. I have learned over time that the majority of others do their shopping in the AM, so to avoid the crowds of shoppers, I do my shopping in the afternoon.
My timing is almost perfect; from 1:30 pm to 3pm all the employees seem to be at lunch. Only one cash register is open during this time so if there are only 20 people in the store and 7 of them want to pay for their stuff and leave, then there will be one long line of 7 people. Anything after 3:30 is usually OK.

I picked up a few items on my trip. As usual there were hardly any other customers in the store. Then I went to the front of the store where the cash registers were. Out of the 12 cash registers, only one was open, although in another one there was an employee who told everyone that he is not open.

“Oh” I thought to myself “I guess I didn’t start to do my shopping late enough.” as I got on a very long line.

It started moving. “Could this be a fast cashier?” I thought to myself in wonder. One person paid for her stuff and left. Then another. And another. Finally I could see the register,. I could almost touch the belt in front too. I was only one person away from lying my few items upon it. When, OOPS. There was a problem.

The cashier asked someone for a price check because the barcode on an item didn’t scan. At that moment the female 2 legged creature in front of me decided that she was going to go to the other cash register where the employee was still sitting but was not ringing up food.

She swung her heavy cart laden with many canned items around right into the small of my back.

Then she backed up and walked away. . (if you’re reading this you dumb cretin, I hope you choke on all that heavy food you bought ! You evil dyed-haired mutant cow !)
Without apologizing or anything. I am used to rude behavior before, I am used to being hit and scraped by these massive shopping carts, but this was PAIN. I was in agony.

I said an expletive out loud, in English, so nobody UNDERSTOOD me (which is good because it wasn’t a nice thing I said either), but they all HEARD me, whether they saw the incident or not. Not one person in line behind asked me if I was OK, or what happened or anything. I tried massaging my own back, but I still hobbled through the cashier line, hobbled out the door and hobbled home.

I am so tired of this extreme rudeness.
Well, now a few hours later the pain has subsided. I don’t even have a bruise. But I am not looking forward to going back.

Yesterday I decided to go food shopping. I have written several posts about the horrors I have found in the supermarket. Here is another one: price increases.

Usually I buy tomatoes every week, but last week I did not, and our house was completely empty of them. Today I went to the store and almost cried. €1.89 a kilo, when just 2 weeks ago I paid €1.42 a kilo for the same tomatoes.
I walked over to the zucchini, which are usually very cheap, but they also had a similar high price .

What’s going on? I know that we are in December, and vegetables are not at their cheapest when it is not the season for them, but an increase of nearly .25 percent in 2 weeks? That is not normal. Something is wrong here. At least I am not the only one who noticed that there is a problem though.

Read this article filled with quotes by the Cia (”Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori”, Italian Agricultural Confederation, not the Central Intelligence Agency !)

Italy: Christmas speculations on fresh produce prices

Rome - According to recent investigations made by the Italian agricultural organization Cia, fresh produce prices have increased between 10 and 40% in just two months. “The increases are totally unjustified. It is just a Christmas speculation” the Cia says, underlining that the prices for the growers are the same they were last year, if not even less in some cases, as for the clementine price.

Read the rest of article here.

At this rate I’ll never be able to afford to eat well. I’ll have to
(shhh, I won’t write it too loudly. DIET.)

I might be. Not only did I go the Supermarket near my house, but I went in the morning, which is, so to say, the rush hour.
Every person over age 50 for miles around seems to come to this little supermarket.

This morning I entered the supermarket. It was packed like I expected. I grabbed a basket and proceeded to look at the fresh vegetables. While my attention was focused on some green peppers, a woman who obviously wishes she were on the race course for the Formula Uno instead of at a lousy supermarket, grabs a shopping cart and running at the speed of light enters the vegetable aisle and plows right into me.
I, of course lost my balance and nearly tumbled into the vegetables.
Did she excuse herself ?
No. Of course not. I always have said that the people in Italy are rude, and everyone seems to prove me right.
After a few minutes of being hit by nice looking granny figures who also turn into wannabe racecar drivers when you put a shopping cart in their hands, I said to myself “Enough!” and decided to leave. I decided to go to the checkout area.
One thing that annoys me is the customers who place their loaded shopping cart or basket in line and then leave it behind to do more shopping.
Not to grab a few items that they see, but to return to the aisles and do a full-on shopping trip.
My thought is that if you are not ready to pay for everything and leave, don’t use the check out line as a holding station.
I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way either. I have witnessed many arguments when people cut in line in front of these abandoned shopping carts when the owners return.
Back to my story, sure enough when I went to the line there was a basket full of food sitting on the ground with no owner in sight. I waited behind it.
All of the other lines were much, much longer and I wanted to go home. Finally as the cashier started to check the food items of the man in front of this abandoned basket I cut in front of it and put my own selected food items on the belt.
There were only 3.
3 measly items.
Just as I was done placing the third item on the belt, the owner of the abandoned food, an old man, showed up with a bunch of food stuffs in his arms.
“Can’t you see my basket ? I’m next in line!” he yelled at me.
Normally I don’t argue with old men who look like they are in their 60s, but I was mad and still hurting. I yelled back.
“YOU weren’t here! The cashier is not going to wait for YOU !” and then he shut up.
So did the man in front of me who was talking to the cashier.(at least for a few seconds which is practically the same)
Perhaps over-aggressive aggression is what you need to survive in Italy.

Thanksgiving is not an Italian Holiday.

Yet nevertheless, as an American woman it was a holiday that I have warm memories of, and I wanted to keep that feeling alive.
My husband had obviously never celebrated it before, so I wanted to make this year’s thanksgiving extra special.
The year was 2002.

Not only was it my first Thanksgiving in Italy, but it was my first Thanksgiving as a married woman.
Even though there are only 2 of us in my household -me and my husband- I was determined to get all of the foods required for a real, proper Thanksgiving meal to show him a little what it’s about…

My planning started a few days before. I went into a store that sells English and American products and looked for cranberries. I didn’t find any.
The store did however sell canned cranberry sauce. I looked at the price tag… 6 Euro.
Too expensive for a can of cranberry sauce !
I decided at that point to forget it. Who needs cranberry sauce anyway ?

I then went to the supermarket to buy things they called sweet potatoes, and zucca, which I thought was pumpkin, but after I bought a chunk and got home, discovered that it was more like a butternut squash.

I also saw that the store sold turkey legs, so I figured that somewhere there must be a whole turkey in hiding but, no.
For that you have to go to a butcher shop.

I then went to a butcher and told the guy behind the counter that I wanted a turkey.
He pointed to some dead chickens complete with feet and heads hanging from the ceiling.

I repeated my question, thinking that maybe he didn’t understand me when I said TURKEY.
I was expecting one of those big breasted animals that I’m used to seeing. The butcher again pointed to those chicken-looking things hanging from the ceiling.

On closer inspection I did see the crown that you find on turkey heads on these creatures, but after seeing their yellow feet I just couldn’t move myself to buy one.

I know that turkeys have feet, but I’m too used to buying my food pre-packaged with the head and feet removed.
I decided NOT to buy turkey. Who needs turkey on thanksgiving ?

“It will be a just have to be a vegetarian Thanksgiving” I thought to myself.

As justification I reasoned that my husband and I are not really fans of turkey anyway.

Back to those items that I thought were sweet potatoes they weren’t. They were hard as rocks and white inside.
There were 4 in each package.
When I saw a worm crawl out of one I threw them all away.
We had regular potatoes in the house for mashed potatoes anyway.

I was planning on serving both kinds of potatoes, but, well, who needs sweet potatoes when there are already mashed potatoes being served ?

The ‘pumpkin’ I bought was just too hard to mash up to make a pumpkin pie.
And the canned mix they sell in the stores cost 6.50 Euro.
Too much to spend on a can of pumpkin mix !
Oh well. Who needs dessert anyway. Just extra calories.

The greenbeans I made looked a little funny without the fried onions that I usually use for a topping, but oh well you can’t have everything.

Buzzurro came home early from work that day for a lovely thanksgiving dinner of mashed potatoes and greenbeans and of course lasagna.
It was not really special as I wanted, more like a normal meal.
Next year we’ll just order pizzas.

Today I went to the bathroom in a huge shopping center. Like usually happens in all shopping centers around the world, the men’s room was empty and there was a line for the ladies room. I have been to this shopping center many times. There is one toilet for the men, and one toilet fo the women.

The 2 people in front of me in the line were a mother and a daughter who was maybe 4.
The little girl, being a typical little girl kept saying loudly “Mama, I have to go to the bathroom”. And the mother always responded “We have to wait”. And the little girl, being a little girl, kept saying “Why ?” as she walked around the bathroom.

After a few minutes a man walked into the common restroom area, went into the men’s room, did his business and left.
The women’s room was still occupied.
After a few minutes the little girl started jumping up and down and said “Mama, I really have to go”.
The mother responded “OK”, and took the girl into the men’s room.
Just as they finished their business, the door to the womens bathroom opened and out walked a man.
I could see some fabric on the floor of the womens bathroom where he exited, so I asked “Is there somebody else in there ?”
“Yes” he said, with a tone of voice that said “don’t bother me”.
Then the mother of the little girl, who also saw the man leave said to me “Is there someone else in there ? What are they doing ? I’ve been waiting a quarter of a hour, and we just couldn’t wait anymore”.
I responded “I don’t know. There are 2 people in there. Maybe they were having sex. I don’t know”.

And at that point a woman walked out of the bathroom and angrily said to me “I was sick. I vomited. We were cleaning it up !”
Well, excuse me lady, I’m sorry you are sick, but there was a line of people waiting to use the toilet, and there were 2 of you in there.
Do you think one person could have at least NOTIFIED the other people what was going on? Especially since one of those people was a little girl who probably can’t hold it in for long anyway ?

Talk about selfishness.

And then to be mad at me because I assumed the worst ?
(Maybe I was right too. When people vomit they make a sound, and the people in front of me were in the bathroom for 15 minutes and didn’t hear anything…)

Today I went to one of my favorite places in Italy, the supermarket (SARCASM).
I made sure that I arrived at a time when the normally packed store is nearly empty.
In fact as soon as I walked inside it was quiet and there were hardly any people around.
Unfortunately though that also included workers.
Out of 9 cash registers, only one was open, and the line of customers waiting at it was huge.
Still, not to be discouraged, I did my shopping and then 30 minutes later took my place on this mega-galactic line.
You would think that having such a long line of customers waiting for service the cashier might want to hurry up a bit, but no, this is Italy.
They don’t hurry up for anybody. The cashier felt it was her right to have a personal discussion with one of the clients.
Never mind the fact that everyone else’s frozen food was melting.
Never mind the fact that the 2 children were whining and complaining and the mother (or grandmother) could do nothing to calm them down.
Never mind the fact that the husband of the older couple behind me complained (loudly) that his feet hurt.
Next time I’ll do my shopping when the market is crazy busy with people, but at least the employees work.

I’ve been writing a lot of posts lately about what DOESN’T work or what I don’t like in Italy, so here is a post dedicated to one thing that I do like.. the shopping carts.

The shopping carts used in the supermarkets are bigger then they are in the US, so that can be a plus if you eat a lot, but that is not why I like them.
I like them because you have to rent them for either 1 or 2 euros in order to use them.
When you are done shopping you can put them back in the rack that they came from and get all your money back.
I like this system because too many times while in the US (where 99.9 percent of the supermarkets have free shopping carts) my parked car has been hit by loose shopping carts who get tossed about with the wind.
The majority being of course, when my car was new.
In Italy the carts are not free and everybody who uses them wants to get back their money, so no one leaves them out loose, to be at the whim of the wind.