Adventures at Jumbo

Be advised: this post contains material that may not be suitable for younger readers.

After 5 straight days of sunshine, the rains have returned to Temuco. The past few days the neighborhood has been sleepy and quiet. Tuesday was Fiestas Patrias, the Chilean Independence day. Most every store in town was closed on Tuesday with many of them closing early on Monday evening and many more remaining closed yesterday. But we didn’t know that small piece of information yesterday morning when I decided it would be a good time to stock up on supplies and restock the pantry. No, we sure didn’t and if we had, well, then this post may have read differently.

To give you some background, I come from a family of buyers. Acquiring fun and fine things at good prices is a trait passed down through my mother’s side of the family. While Sarah rolls her eyes at some of the items I have brought home over our years together, I cannot even begin to compare myself with my mom, but after she reads this post she may be at once both ashamed and envious of me.

More than anything, my mother loves to go grocery shopping. Over the past 3 years since moving to Madison, 8 out of 10 times I would call her cell phone, I would reach her while she was in a grocery store. She would answer the phone, hear my voice and ask, “You’ll never guess where I am? That’s right, I am at Dierberg’s picking up some supplies for dinner. ” Well, here in Temuco, because we have only one frying pan, one small pot and one large soup/pasta pot we can’t cook too much, so we don’t buy too much (is that good logic?). Furthermore, since the vegetable stands are only 3 and 5 blocks away, there is no pressing need for us to stock up. (Do I need to mention that I do need something to get me out of the apartment everyday?)

After yesterday though, I am thinking that I might as well rename this Blog – Adventures at Jumbo, no, maybe I should just refer to the blog as “Pepe va comprando.” (Pepe goes shopping.) Why Pepe and what is Jumbo, you may be asking? Especially when I already have the prefabricated Spanish name of Pablo? It could be because I always looked up to my older brother who is a Joe Junior and from what my Spanish books say Pepe is the Spanish name for Joe. But the real reason comes from the fact that my brother and I share the English dialect known as sailor’s English, some refer to it as gutter talk, potty mouth, battlefield language, etc. My brother and I identify well with the great joke’s punch line: We don’t call a spade a spade we call it a f_cking shovel. We both have reputations not only within our family but also in our work lives. You may be able to see where this is going…my adventures in shopping, especially at Jumbo, remind me of Pepe.

Shopping in Chile is a curious experience. As I mentioned, we typically go to the vegetable stand and a panaderia (bakery) every day or every other day. Then there are the corner stores and mini marts on every block, usually one quarter of someone’s home residence. There are numerous butcher shops too. At the panaderia I have become accustomed to picking out the small bread rolls that we want, usually 6 or 8, and taking them to the girl behind the counter who weighs them and gets a bar coded print out with the total amount of kilograms and therefore the total price. All of this happens without any need to talk.

Yesterday, I went out expecting to get all the food I wanted at the local vegetable stands, but because it was the day after Fiestas Patrias, all the local stores were closed. I walked the extra blocks to Jumbo, our local giant, corporate chain grocery and-everything-else-you-would-ever-want-for-your-home-including-tires store. I found the herbal teas we needed including the elusive Yerba Mate in bags, and I was even able to sniff out the dark chocolate. To those of you who may be thinking “if these are the worst of his troubles then…” I must say that this was not an easy task.

Chileans, I am happy to report like chocolate. However, it seems as though folks down here really don’t eat much dark chocolate. I had strict orders from the boss to get DARK only. For every 20 kinds of milk chocolate there was only ½ of a dark chocolate bar. Luckily there were a few choices of dark, along with thousands of choices of milk. However, this posed a dilemma. The boss never mentioned what kind of dark chocolate. Hmm, what to do and what brand is the best? (Enter right brain: Paul’s heredity.) Hmm. Well, I can’t go wrong with 3! (Like I said earlier, my mother will be proud when she reads this post.)

Next on my list were the milk and the veggies. Broccoli – got it. Potatoes – got those. Onions – only need one, check. Small lemons – yes. And the celery and garlic – check. I eventually found the toothpaste and bathing soap and made my way to the check out lane and cashier. And this is when my adventures took a turn. While the gentleman was scanning the chocolate, sponges, and herbal teas, he momentarily paused, held up the onion and said… well, he said something, and it was very fast and it threw me for a loop.

This is not supposed to happen. Here I am packing up my backpack with all these grocery items trying to reduce the use of the Jumbo plastic bags, which, by the way, they claim to be 100% biodegradable, and this guy has the nerve to ask me a question!?! In Spanish, no less! Didn’t he read that sign around my neck that I am clueless with questions, especially when they come to me in Spanish? Plan A, do what I learned to do during all my years living in South Asia, smile and say yes. And if that doesn’t work move on to Plan B, stand here quietly and count to 10. He will figure out the answer to his own question and I can smile and nod and not say anything and then he can go about scanning in the rest of the vegetables and I can pack my backpack and then he can take my money and I can walk home. Yes, this is what I will do. Plan A, first…

“Si.” I said with a smile.

Nothing.

I guess South Asian conversation skills don’t translate into Spanish!

The cashier was still holding this large yellow onion, and he repeated his question, only this time he spoke faster!

Help! I had no idea what to do nor what the heck this guy was asking. At this point my inner Pepe must have taken over the brain lobe controlling my body language and facial expressions and my face must have read something like, “How in the f_ck should I know?” Because at this point the cashier after seeing my face called over the check out lanes’ supervisor and handed the supervisor the onion. The supervisor went scurrying off. Disaster was avoided and the cashier went back to scanning the rest of the groceries. Then I felt really bad because I remembered that hidden under the tortilla chips were 4 small lemons, 4 potatoes and 2 large grapefruit. Oh shit!

Then he noticed them, and I knew that he had noticed them because he started to slow in his speed of scanning the bar coded items. But he didn't say anything. (Could this be progress? Hurray for Pepe!) Once he had finished scanning all that he could scan, he just stood there waiting and I was standing there waiting too. I felt awful and he was waiting for his supervisor to return and people started to line up in the check out lane because it looked like it would be fast and he turned them away and I saw complete puzzlement in their eyes. And I felt worse.

In the end he had to send 4 families away and the supervisor came back with a bar code scan specifically for the onion and then was assigned the job of getting barcodes for those grapefruit, lemons and potatoes. This supervisor was not amused and scurried off again. And it was at this point that I started to use the Spanish I know best.

“Discuple…perdón. Discuple…perdón.” (Excuse me…excuse me, sorry.)

The cashier was nice and said, “No, por favor…” and a lot of other words that may have even been a couple of sentences or more. In fact he may not have been nice at all and may have told me I was a jerk, but I do recall that he did say, “No, por favor…”

I am thinking I need to study more, but I know that I need to keep my expectations realistic. Before trying to figure out where that darn scale is with the barcode print out for the produce at Jumbo, maybe it would be easier for me to learn how to apologize better. Maybe something like, “Lo siento. Lo siento. Soy un idiota grande. Si. Perdón. Lo siento mucho. Mi cabeza no es beuno, está como la carne de res. No. Si, por favor, está. Mi madre no estaría orgullosa de me. Lo siento muchísimo.”*

So the moral of Pepe’s adventure is that it doesn’t pay to be an environmental conscious grocery shopper in Chile. Always ask for a plastic bag with your produce, and whatever you do, don’t tell anyone at the Madison Co-ops that we willingly affix barcode stickers to our fruits and vegetables!

The cause of the trouble!

*Translation: "I am sorry. I am sorry. I am a big idiot. Yes. Excuse me. I am so sorry. My brain is not good; it is like ground beef. No, yes, please, it is. My mother would not be proud of me. I am very, very sorry."