Monday, 30 April 2012

I knew this nirvana was living on borrowed time

OK, I give up. I've finally stumbled on a ritual that is interfering with our idyllic lifestyle and it has come in the form of queuing at the Carrefour supermarket check out in St Cyprien.
What is it with these French and their mania for a glacial like pace when it comes to the check out. It's not just in St Cyprien, it's a countrywide disease.
We went through all this stress-testing back in 2010 in Beaune, and nothing, but nothing has changed over the last two years.
For starters, the check out operators all appear to be on happy pills and have signed a collective agreement to work at a pace that wouldn't embarrass a snail.
Then it's the shoppers. Why can't they simply plonk down their goodies, pick up same on the other side of the cash till, throw a few Euros in the general direction of the cashier and get the hell out of the way.
John, Julia, you must be bloody dreaming.
It starts with the unload process. Every article is treated like its fragile china and as such is gently lowered onto the conveyor belt with a 5cm gap in all directions to ensure no product rubs up against the next.
The cashier in turn meanders through the check out process at a pace which immediately generated very dark thoughts in someone such as yours truly.
I'm starting to think about zapping this woman with a cattle prod. Why the hell can't she just crank things up and get on with it.
Then it's down to the ponderous routine of reloading all groceries into bags (noting that French supermarkets don't go in for cheap plastic bags) and everyone pulls a great assortment of their own carrier bags.
The loonies in front of us, a precious overweight ten year old with a frizzy red hair style like that starlet in the film "Annie", the father who looked like an old rock star of about sixty five who appeared to have had the life sucked out of him and finally, his mother who looked about ninety  and  was using a supermarket trolley that doubles up as a zimmer frame (you have to love these French, they think of everything in this Socialist society ).
Finally these three obviously dysfunctional characters eventually realise they haven't purchased enough carry bags , so we wait another five minutes as they perform the twenty second task of purchasing two additional €0.15 bags
I thought at this stage we were on the home straight.
No such luck.
It appears that the French are simply unwilling to settle supermarket bills in cash. So we now move onto the ritual of either writing a cheque or paying by credit card.
Mother and son set to discussing who is going to pay for what.
There is immediate disagreement so half the groceries are then unpacked, discussed at length then repacked in exactly the same bags they were originally stowed in.
This whole scene is doing my head in. I want to scream!
But I don't. I simply sit down and proceed to take a photo as proof that we were there during this crazy thirty minute episode.
No, it's not over,the son's credit card is Ok for payment but his mothers is short on funds.
So off she shuffles to an ATM to transfer some funds.
Here she comes, now this has to come to an end.
But no, she failed to hit the right digits and didn't transfer enough.
Back she goes to the ATM.
The rock star and his spawn have disappeared and leave Nana to cart,drag and juggle a large yellow melon, 3 bottles of wine under her weak wings as well as one very overloaded plastic Carrefour carry bag. 
A minute later we are centre stage, we do our thing, we pay our cash and we exit the doors whilst the previous customers are having a mother, son and grandson domestic outside about who is going to cart the groceries to the car in the rain.
I am now safely back in our accommodation in Pechboutier. I can tell you it will freeze in hell before we return to that .....place!

Cheers

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