Grocery Shopping Hell Part II

You’d think after seven (!) months in this country I would have made peace with grocery shopping (or boodschappen doen in Flemish… Big exam today!) and I would stop boring people with my grocery store rants, but… I can’t. It’s a frustrating and alarming place, and I must vent about it or go crazy.

First, there is the cart issue… It costs two euros to get a cart out of the little cart corral in the parking lot. Fine, you get your money back when you return it, but firstly two euros is a lot of money – That’s like fifty-five bucks Canadian, secondly I never have the flippin’ two euro coin. So, I generally forego the cart and use the basket. I was always a basket-grocery shopper in Canada, so it shouldn’t be a big deal…

Except

1. For the huge amounts of milk (melk) I need to buy (see earlier entries re Andrew’s calcium deficiency) and
2. the giant masses of Belgian beer (bier)and incredibly cheap bottles of French wine (flessen de Frans wijn) that I am also always buying (This I accept partial blame for).

Altogether it makes my basket painfully heavy and me painfully grumpy.

The other thing that makes me grumpy is how poorly laid out everything is. The place is not intuitive. I need to buy sphagetti… Is it next to the beautiful display of spaghetti sauces? No! It’s by the flour (bloem), which is NOWHERE near the sugar (zuiker). Forget about buying regular razorblades. They’re considered so dangerous that you bring the EMPYT box up to the checkout, and are issued with a ticket. Then after standing in another line, a vending machine spits them out to you. Thank God for that security, because I know that when I’m contemplating shivving someone, I want to use a bright pink, Venus Silky Smooth razorblade and buying it from a vending machine magically curbs that desire.

For the longest time I couldn’t find light bulbs anywhere. Not a big deal. One of our living room lights had burned out, but I figured one day I’d stumbled across the light bulb display – Not with the cleaning supplies. Not with the paper products. Not with the little sets of screws and nails… Where the hell were they? Things started to get desperate when one of the kitchen light bulbs burned out. Then one in the guest room .Then one in our bedroom. I was getting frantic. It was like we were slowly going blind. I envisioned us spending the few years in Belgium in a dark apartment, lit only by those tiny Ikea tea lights. Finally, in desperation, I approached an incredibly surly store clerk (A move I try to avoid at all costs… They’re like Rhinos, rare, dangerous, and prone to charging at you unpredicatably) Anyway, the clerk, with much eye-rolling at my ignorance, pointed me in the right direction: The light bulbs were above the dog food (hondvoedsel)… Obviously!

The other day I thought I had finally found the solution to my grocery store rage. I stumbled across this massive shop in our neighbourhood, called Coluruyt. Because of its name I had always just obscurely thought it sold paint… You know Colour-right. Anyway, it turns out it’s a discount-ish grocery store… Sort of like a Price Choppers, or a Costco. I sailed in, and the first thing that greeted me were beautiful, huge shopping carts, unencumbered by chains and demands for two euro. I grabbed a cart and glided gleefully down the aisles. There was much more room here than at the horrible Delhaize, far fewer people, prices were lower and I HAD A CART. I was having a great time, deliriously muttering about how the days of Delahize tyranny were over. True, Coluryt wasn’t perfect. For instance, despite stocking every type of cheese, buttermilk, sour cream and yoghurt-related item imaginable, they didn’t actually sell FRESH milk, just the (shudder) horrible UHT stuff that can sit indefinitely on the shelf.

Still , this was a minor inconvenience. I had found my alternative! I had freed myself from the shackles of the Delhaize! I had even found the light bulbs!

I went to pay. Gloriously, there were no lines. I zipped up to the cashier, my cart brimming with wonderful, marvellous groceries.

That is when the dream came to a crashing end: They only take cash. I never have cash. They do not accept bank cards or credit cards. They certainly will not take a cheque from a crazed, devastated Anglophone, especially when that cheque is actually issued from the Bank of Montréal in Crownsville, Quebec. The store clerk, after looking at my brimming cart and realising that she would have to put everything back on the shelf, screamed at me. The other customers glared. I bowed my head in shame and trudged home.

Stopping, of course, at the Delhaize, to pick up groceries.