Supermarket not so Super

I usually do my weekly shopping on Thursdays unless I'm doing something totally important on a Thursday like my daughter's wedding in a few weeks on Thursday or some peace thingy on Thursday or whatever. There were a whole bunch of important things going on Thursday evening like the Sting concert which I couldn't afford so I didn't go, and then there was the Palestinian film about their soccer team being shown on the Wall in Abu Dis which I could have gone to, but because I'm camping out on Friday at the Celebration of Light Festival, I thought, even though my kids/family/caveman hubby give me a difficult time when I am around, it's better for all of us when mom is around. So I traded Friday night for being here on Thursday....

I went to Mister Zol where I live. It's translation is "Mister Cheap" in English. A regular supermarket chain. Thursday is shopping day rush and there weren't any shopping carts available. So I did what I usually do, and rushed out the exit to grab a cart there and walk in through the exit. But a security guard stopped me short.

"You can't come in here this way."

"What way?"

"You can't come in through the exit"

"But I've been coming in through the exit with shopping carts for 10 years!"

"I'm sorry, but I'll get fired if I let you in"

I was tired from saving my husband from buying a hideous suit he was going to buy for the wedding - I walked into the store while he had the thing on - black loud pinstripes with a black t-shirt beneath. He looked like Don Corleone on a really rough day.

"Sorry, no mobster clothes for this man" I told the saleswoman, and we spent another 1 1/2 hours in the mall looking for the right combination.

She pulled out a white shirt with sequins. For him.

"No Liberace shirts for him either." I huffed. But I did choose something lovely in one of those "newly appropriate" colors for men - lilac with a matching tie and a soft pinstriped suit. Hubby looked absolutely dashing. He put down our grocery money to pay for half the suit and we went back home.

But it was an ordeal and I was in no mood for smarmy idiot security guards who could have checked me going back into the store. I had to return the cart and go all the way around the mall to the front entrance again to get to the supermarket. I was furious.

"FUCK YOU, YOU IDIOT" I swore at him in English and slammed the shopping cart into the pile of others standing at the exit. I made my way again past the Russian security chap in the front entrance to the mall, probably wondering if he was seeing my double.

I did manage to find a cart inside the store and went over to the meat section. Hubby prematurely threw out last weekend's papers and I wasn't quick enough to grap the coupon page. But I saw a couple of last week's news by the meat guys.

"Could you grab me that paper please. I'm looking for coupons." He reluctantly walked over to give me one. The back page with the coupons was missing. After I ordered what I needed from him, I asked me to get me the other one.

"Sorry, I can't. There are other people waiting." There was one other person in line and the shit was too busy to walk one foot behind him to hand me another paper. It's not his job after all. He's a meat man, not a paper delivery boy.

I sadly walked passed a guy who was usually works in the meat section.

"How are you?" he asked.

"OK, fine, I guess."

He looked at my cart. I had a chopped meat package in the place where you put little children on to sit.

He gave me a very disapproving look - even though the meat was packaged in hard plastic.

"You shouldn't put the meat there, that's where you put tushies."

"Fine" I said and moved on, putting the meat in the main part of the cart. I had no energy left to argue with anyone else in that store.

Hubby came in and I complained to him bitterly about how harrassed I felt. He made me laugh by shaking hands with a Russian acquaintance and asked me immediately afterwards if I wanted to buy any "nyet" making it sound like "meat" with a Russian accent.

A good laugh - that's exactly what I needed.