All By Myself!

I just got back from driving to the supermarket, the bank and back. All. By. My. Self. Granted, in the US this is no big deal. I guess technically, no matter where you are, it is no big deal. The big deal comes when you are driving a manual car you've never driven before, on roads you've only just seen two times before, in a country where you don't know the language and are only "pretty sure" of what road signs mean. We were all supposed to go, but the children really, really didn't want to (so much for the newness making it seem fun) so David sent me off on my own.

First I drove to Leclerc (the supermarket - I only made one wrong turn on the way). But then I realized they didn't have an ATM (which I needed to visit before shopping). So then I used the GPS to find the nearest bank (which apparently I didn't need to do because it sent me to what I already knew to be a bank, I just would have thought there would have been one closer). After parallel parking on the busiest street ever and successfully changing the ATM language to "English" (LOVE that feature!), I was back to Leclerc with money, list, and bags in hand.

To get a cart at the grocery store, you have to insert a 1euro coin into a chain that releases one cart from all the others. This is how they force you to return your cart when you are done shopping instead of leaving them all over the parking lot because when you hook the cart back up to the chain it spits your coin back out at you. David of course thinks this is brilliant. I think it is annoying. You can guess which one of us is the more conscientious shopping cart user. Another annoying feature with these carts is they come in all-wheel drive. You know how there's always a bum wheel going it's own way whenever you use a shopping cart anywhere in the US? Now imagine all four wheels are going their own way and you get a pretty good idea of the steering capabilities of all-wheel drive carts. It was almost comical watching others and attempting to navigate myself the hairpin turns around isles in the store. I can't believe there aren't fatalities on a regular basis.

Once I got my cart under manageable control, I did okay - trying to compare prices in euro from brand to brand and then trying to compare prices from Euro to Dollar. Of course add to this the attempt at reading labels to even know what it is I was comparing and things got a little interesting. My first challenge was discerning "shampoo" (which I didn't need) from "conditioner" (which I did). Shampooing and Apres-Shampooing look an awful lot alike! But they are not priced alike. Needless to say, I am hoping my hair responds very brilliantly to the French climate and my need for conditioner goes out the window so my money doesn't.

Then there was the search for the correct garbage bags. I can barely do this one correctly in Market Basket back home, so odds were pretty dreadful that I would get this one right. I didn't. i figured 50L would be pretty darn big, but I guess it wasn't big enough for our super cool, high tech poubelle which opens and closes automatically with a motion sensor! Oh well.

Then it was on to the fish counter. At Market Basket I avoid the fish counter because of the lines and buy the prepackaged fish at the same or cheaper price. Here I desperately wanted to avoid the fish counter for countless reasons, none of which concerned having to wait in a line. But alas, they do not apparently have prepackaged fish for the counter-phobes in France, so I found myself staring at a very large variety of fish (some of which stared back, in all it's full-bodied splendor) not having a CLUE what any of it was.

Perhaps now is when some would question why I didn't make use of my handy pocket-sized French-English dictionary. I had left that in the car. And for good reason. We had only just purchased said dictionary two days ago at the same store. I was pretty sure it didn't looked worn enough to convince anyone I wasn't shoplifting and I didn't have the receipt on me, soooo.... rather than run the risk of meeting the Gendarme, I decided I didn't really need it.

The woman behind the counter took notice of me and said the customary, "Bonjour" which is what everyone uses before they ever say anything else, no matter what. (Yes, I do imagine a nearly catastrophic event being just barely avoided by someone politely saying, "Bonjour. Attention pour ca voiture!" - Hello. Watch out for that car!) At this point the unavoidable was upon me and I wondered, do I just dive in or do I warn her that I am an American idiot? I decided a cautionary warning was most definitely in order.

"Bonjour. Je suis desolee, mais mon francais est tres mauvais." (Hello. I am sorry, but my french is very bad.) At which point, she smiled, and gestured for me to go on ahead and give it my best. We began to muddle through, but the line started to grow, so I politely informed her she could serve the other customers while I figured out what in the world I was doing. This only served to prolong my agony at which point I should have stolen away to the deodorant isle.

Eventually I had to tell her what it was I was trying to make (fried fish & chips), which would have been easy, but I had forgotten the word for "fry" - frire. She led me to some "poisson blanc sans arêtes" (white fish without bones) and I was on my way. And all this for what translates to a mere $10/lb. Apparently fish will be a special occasion meal for the rest of our year here!

I got the rest of the shopping done without major snafus and through check out - where I tried desperately to look like I had it together and managed to look instead like a buffoon with euros spilling out everywhere, while I attempted to bag my own groceries (the clerks sit behind the counter looking very comfortable but utterly useless) and hurry it up because the lines were very long.

When I got home David had the audacity to wonder why it took me so long.

Really????