une année à pau

Today, since I have no class, I decided to go out and buy some groceries for dinner this week. There is a discount grocery story right next to a bakery not far from my house, so I went there and shopped around for about half an hour before I stood in line to check out. 

It is very important in France to say “Bonjour” or “Bonsoir” to the person inside every shop you enter. If you don’t say anything, you are being rude and you won’t be treated as a valued customer. In some large stores, or busy ones, you can’t say hello to everyone who works there, so you just wait until you get up to the cash register.

I always prepare to say “Bonjour” to the man or woman behind the cash register in grocery stores, so that’s what I was doing while I was waiting in line. It’s my first word aloud to them, so I always try to get it right so that they don’t automatically write me off as a foreigner (although I’m sure they do anyway!). 

So, I reach the front of the line and I say “Bonjour,” and the woman behind the counter replies “Bonjour.” As she starts ringing up my stuff, I breathe a sigh of relief, because she hasn’t asked me any questions, so I assume that all I have to do is pay and say “Au revoir.” Haha. Unfortunately not. After a second she reaches for my produce - tomatoes and mushrooms and apples, all of which are put in separate bags - and she starts speaking in rapid French, and I don’t really understand what she saying. She points toward the area of the store where I bought them and I think it has something to do with weighing them, or putting some kind of sticker on them, which I didn’t do. I pick them up and stare at the guy behind me and he says “Allez-y,” which basically means “go ahead,” so I start walking toward the back of the store. There were people in line behind me, waiting for me to do something with the produce, but I had no idea what to do! 

Luckily, as I was walking aimlessly in the direction that I thought they wanted me to go, I stumbled upon little weighing machines with pictures on buttons to print out stickers. So, I quickly weighed all my produce and printed out the stickers and then hurried back to the line, and by that point I’d said enough French that everyone knew I was a native English-speaker, so they either disliked me more or understood that I was foreign and somewhat forgave me. Hopefully the latter.

But now I know… next time I go to the discount grocery, I have to weigh my produce. Lesson learned. It won’t be the first and it certainly won’t be the last time that something like that happens!!