Grocery shopping however, well that is a whole different story. I must admit I have never been one to enjoy my trips to the grocery store and since moving to Israel, my hate-hate relationship with the grocery store has gone to new levels. It isn't just not finding the products you are used to, the fact that 1% milk is as fat-free as you can get, that a year supply of Haagen Dasz costs as much as tuition did in America, that figuring out the names of the cuts of meat requires a PhD, or the fact that the employees of grocery stores here do not seem to have gotten the "customer service" memo and will run you over with their dollies as they take up 3/4 of the aisle while replenishing the shelves. My biggest pet peeve, one that I cannot seem to get over, is the fact that in order to get a grocery cart, I am required to deposit a ₪5 coin in a little slot that causes the chained cart to become lose. I get the idea behind it. Depositing ₪5 ensures that I will return the cart to its designated place once I am done using it instead of leaving it behind in the middle of the parking lot, but c'mon, I am about to spend close to a thousand Shekels inside, can't the supermarket afford someone to retrieve the carts from the parking lot? Is it not enough that I just bagged my own groceries?
Yesterday morning was like any other Friday morning at the grocery store: a complete zoo. Lately I have been doing my grocery shopping online, which I must say, is a complete wonder, however, my last purchase was short a few things, so a visit to the brick and mortar was necessary. I arrived a little after 10am with my two year old daughter and shuffled through my purse to find ₪5. The best I could come up with was a ₪2 and two ₪1 coins, which meant I had to get change because the grocery cart retrieval requires an exact ₪5 coin. I scanned for the possibility of a lose cart to no avail, so went inside to get change from the "customer service" desk (note the quotation marks are to denote sarcasm). There were three people in line for the same reason I was and the woman at the desk was on the phone. After a few minutes of waiting, armed with my ₪5 coin, I retrieved a cart and started my battle for grocery shopping on a Friday morning.
I finished rather quickly, except for the line at the register which held me back about 35 minutes, and all the while I was waiting, ideas of using my blog to vent about the ₪5 situation flowed through my head. As I was bagging my groceries, talking to the lady behind me and the woman at the register, they noticed I have an accent and asked where I came from. People can't believe I left Miami (paradise to them) to come here. The woman behind me asked how I liked Israel. Grocery shopping aside, I love living here, so with a bright smile I said "I love it, we are really happy". She was surprised and said "wow, that's wonderful to hear. Even with all the problems we have, you are happy here". Without hesitation, I said "there are problems everywhere, but here these are OUR problems". Even I couldn't believe my own answer, I really meant it. I feel that even after only a year, this is MY land. And so I left, having said shabbat shalom to both women, proudly pushing my sideways-running grocery cart (what's up with that by the way?).
