New supermarket on the Block
The Romans knew something about luxurious living, but being fed grapes by slave maidens while reclining on an Iron Age sofa is nothing compared to having a supermarket in the same building that you live in. There is a small branch of a very well known French supermarket on the ground floor of my block. It is probably the single most convenient thing I have come across since I discovered sitting down. I could quite easily and comfortably take the lift downstairs in the morning and buy my bread and jam wearing my dressing gown and slippers - assuming I ate bread and jam for breakfast, or got up in the morning.
The big problem with my super convenient supermarket is that it makes me feel guilty that I now never go to the slightly less convenient Polish corner shop, which is about 25 metres away on the other side of the road. I had a long relationship with the corner shop because, until recently, the supermarket downstairs didn't sell beer. Now, I am under the spell of my sleek new French mistress and my first love is abandoned and alone. I never call and I keep my eyes down when I have to walk past her corner.
It all started because of the lemon incident. I can't remember exactly why I needed a lemon, but it may have had something to do with gin and tonic. "I'll pop into the little corner shop on the way home, rather than bother with the big place," I thought to myself. I located a lemon and skipped to the cash register, which was under the control of my least favourite shop woman. She has a big friendly badge that says: "My name is Gosia" and a big unfriendly face that says: "If you don't have the right change, I'm going to break your legs."
Me: Hello, I'd like to buy this fine lemon please.
Gosia: Have you weighed it?
Me (picking up lemon and looking thoughtful for a moment): About 90 grams?
Gosia: No. You have to go to the fruit and vegetable section, ring the bell and wait for somebody to come and weigh it for you.
Me: I'll give you two złoty for it.
Gosia: You have to…
Me: Three złoty!
Gosia: Go!
I walk around the corner to the fruit and vegetable section knowing this is going to be neither an enjoyable nor a short experience. There is a button on the wall that looks exactly like a doorbell. It also sounds exactly like a doorbell when you press it. Nothing else happens for what seems like a very long time. I shuffle from one foot to the other thinking rude and hot things about other supermarkets. I press the bell again.
Gosia: Yes?
Me: I'd like to have this very small grapefruit weighed please.
Gosia: That’s not a grapefruit, it’s a lemon.
Me: I know. I was just trying to add some humour to this awkward situation.
We walk back to the cash register in silence, where I pay 1.05 zł for my lemon. I didn't enjoy it.
I haven't been back since, but I wish I could. My new mistress is cruel and capricious, like all things French. She entices you with her seventeen gleaming cash registers but, when you get inside, only two of them are open. Both have queues of a dozen people with one lemon and a bottle of Chanel No. 5 in their baskets. We avoid each other's eyes.
Jamie Stokes
