Carrafour

[lizzybennet]

Yesterday Mariannette's family, Sailing and I went to Carrafour for some grocery shopping. I need construction paper for some of my homeschool lessons and I haven't been able to find it yet. I didn't find it at Carrafour either. Hmm...perhaps I need to search out a stationary store?

Back to the point: both Mariannette and I had encounters with very rude cashiers. I thought this was odd, considering that I've seen more foriegners at Carrafour than anywhere else. In other words, it would seem that these cashiers are used to dealing with the "strange ways" of foriegners.

My cashier bagged my bread and milk together. Ok, I know that most Chinese don't by sliced bread. It's not necessarily a staple in their diet, so perhaps it didn't occur to her that smooshed bread isn't not very tasty. I started waving my hand and saying, "no, no, don't put the milk in with the bread." Of course, she couldn't understand me so I reached into the bag and took the milk out. She then gave me a look that screamed "you are utterly ridiculous" and slung the bag of bread at me. I pointed to a box of cereal and said told her we could put that in the bread bag instead. She rolled her eyes. I felt petty and stupid, although I knew I was totally justified.

Mariannette's cashier was worse. The cashier tried to ring up some steaks and when they wouldn't scan, she started talking to Mariannette in rapid Chinese. We were quite fortunate that Sailing accompanied us so she could help us interpret all this cashier confusion! It turns out that since the meat wouldn't scan, Mariannette couldn't buy it. Even though it had the price right there on the label, there was no way the cashier could manually enter the price. The cashier made it seem as if this was Mariannette's fault that the meat wouldn't scan and she was like "what do you want me to do about it?" Mariannette said forget it, I'll get it another time. The funniest part came when we were leaving the cashier held up the meat and said "here, don't forget this!" Yea, after all that Mariannette walked out of there with free steak. Weird, huh?

The other day when Chris went to Carafour alone, the cashier made a remark to her co-worker: "Look at all the food this foreigner is buying!" Of course she didn't think Chris could speak Chinese. When he answered her "I have a wife and three kids at home." she was mortified and refused to look at or speak to him as she rang up the rest of the groceries.

In other news, I just met the accountant for the group, Scott. He has a 10 year old daughter and 14 year old niece coming who will also be homeschooling. Sweet! Maybe we can take fieldtrips together. Scott and his wife will both be taking classes. Mariannette is taking a class too. Even though I too am taking my usual online classes (three that start on Monday), I feel a little left out. I think I'd really enjoy taking Chris' history class, but I know that's not possible. For some reason he gets terribly nervous when I attend his lectures. We learned that the hard way and won't make that mistake again! OH! Scott also made it a point to tell me that his niece loves to babysit. See, the nanny thing totally worked itself out. We have an American babysitter close-by so we won't be trapped at home all the time. Chris and we'll still be able to have time alone.

Comments

[texastea.livejournal.com]

I am always guity of anticipating and getting ahead of myself, so allow me the indulgence of a prediction. I think that the fourteen-year-old particularly, will be a good source of companionship for you. I love kids that age, and I imagine she will enjoy any time you will allow her to spend with you, as will her sister.

[mysteena.livejournal.com]

I like your prediction. In truth, I often feel a bit awkward around teenage girls. I'm not sure why, but it's like I don't know what to talk about to them. I hope I can be friends with both of them. 10 isn't that much older than Zack (he'll be 8 in November), so maybe they can be friends too.

[risingpheenix.livejournal.com]

One of the things I learned with my cousin's teenaged daugther is just to play dumb and let her tell what is considered cool and then she feels good that she's shown some adult how uncool they are. I don't mind it because I absolutely adore her. But also she's just so funny and love sto just talk about anything. So I just let her talk. It's funny to listen to her because she reminds me of me when I was her age.

I think you're gonna have a good time with her, just enjoy her youthfulness, her spirit. I hope she's a friendly kid. She may just appreciate having an adult who doesn't think she's just a kid either.

[mysteena.livejournal.com]

This is great advice. I'm a pretty good listener at times. Thanks

[risingpheenix.livejournal.com]

I'm glad Chris spoke up to the cashier. Mike had something similar happen to his family. They had a German foreign exchange student. The student was on the phone one night talking badly about Mike's family but had no idea that Mike's dad was fluent in German. His dad let the student finish his call and then told him, in German, how he didn't appreciate that bad talk. I don't think the student stayed with them much longer.

[mysteena.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a sad story, for both Mike's family and the student. Yes, Chris often uses his skillz to easedrop :) And I like the feeling of being able to converse with Chris right in front of people and they have no clue what we are saying.