Getting Tested at the Grocery Store: An Exercise in Observation
I cannot emphasize enough, I love grocery stores. The inconceivable abundance, the buffet of colors, the mundanity of it all, I find it thrilling. There’s also something so revealing in seeing which bag of grapes someone reaches for, the brand of soap someone uses to wash their clothes, or the chips they grab to stash away in their pantry.
It probably comes as no surprise that when I travel, an essential part of the itinerary is to visit a local grocery store. I always stop by to ransack the snack aisle, and you can guarantee the spoils of these trips are safely stashed in my suitcase until I share them with my family back home (I currently have 4 bags of gummy candy in my carry on).
Yesterday my mom and I visited our neighborhood Famila Supermercato in Palermo. We walked up to what looked like automatic sliding doors, but we quickly realized they weren’t moving. We pushed them open, and I felt an immediate rush of familiarity wash over me. There was something else there though, something right below the surface. Fueled by signs in a language I can’t understand and marginally different packaging, going grocery shopping in another country feels like grocery shopping in a parallel universe. What should be a straightforward errand is aflush with challenges, each designed to test your skills in observation.
I was picking plums from the produce section when a serious looking security guard started talking to me in brisk Italian. I was caught in a moment of utter loss, but I began to hear what sounded like the word glove. He started pointing to a shelf on the side of the store where I finally noticed a small box of disposable gloves on the top. I looked around and for the first time, I realized everyone was wearing disposable gloves to pick up any produce! I wanted to tell the security guard I was sorry, but when I turned around he was gone. It must have been a stroke of luck, because I discovered at that moment that I didn’t know how to say that in Italian. I made a note to look that it later.
I hurried to comply and hastily grabbed a disposable glove. After it was already on my hand, I realized I had already finished grabbing my plums. I had no more business in the produce section, so I stuffed the glove in my tote bag and scurried off to find a different aisle.
Desperate to escape the site of my faux paus, I preoccupied myself with examining packaging designs in a far off part of the store. I couldn’t stop thinking about the glove, and then I began to wonder if I was missing something else. Back in the produce section, everyone had been weighing their selections on a scale. I figured they were just curious, but why was literally everyone weighing their stuff? Did everyone care that much? I knew I had to return to investigate. I traced my steps and positioned myself inconspicuously near the scale. Someone went to weigh their stuff and aha! I saw a little white label being printed off and being stuck on their bag of vegetables. I needed to do the same to my plums and all the produce my mom had stuck in our cart. Unable to read the Italian on the screen, I guessed I needed to punch in the accompanying produce number written on the store signs into the scale before weighing my goods. It worked! I grabbed my sticker labels and checked out smoothly. I felt triumphant!
Another grocery store conquered! I am a grocery store god! My ecstasy may seem disproportionate to the setting, but I was starting to feel the pressure in there. The store was getting crowded with Italian shoppers not looking to get inconvenienced by bumbling tourists. I managed my way through and even learned a little about how Italy’s collectivist culture prioritizes food safety and making cashier’s lives easier by weighing your own goods. In Vienna, I witnessed someone get scolded by another person in line for taking too long to check out, and from this I learned their adherence to proper etiquette and their willingness to call you out for it. The internet warned me this would happen if you took too long in the grocery store line, but I didn’t truly believe it until I saw it. In Nice, I learned you had to scan your receipt to open the exit gate in order to leave the store. It made sense as a bit of theft protection because the store was in a very busy square.
Grocery stores are an anthropological gold mine, and every observed interaction and detail feeds into a larger cultural story. Each store has its quirks, and the only way to avoid a scene is to observe and mimic. I find it all riveting, and although I just went, I feel the nearby Famila Supermercato beckoning my name. Can’t wait to stop by again.
