Service desert

How in the fcuk can you call yourself running a grocery store and NOT have ish on the shelf?!

This is one of the horrors of living in Germany. I live alone and fortunately do not have to shop for a whole family. That is a good thing since my refridgerator is about the size of a dorm room unit from my old college days; big enough for one person. That, I suppose it where the problem begins, but not so much. You see, it means I have to go to the supermarket more often.

I happen to live in a neighbor hood with one supermarket you could call a supermarket. It is budget, no frills shop about 10 minutes walk from my flat in the opposite direction of the train station. If I want any thing special, read NORMAL brands, I have to make a decision, either take to train 3 stops downtown or 2 stops in the opposite direction to the nearest shopping center. I always make the wrong choice.

Saturday I decided to go to the shopping center, thinking, quite wrongly, that the supermarket there would HAVE my favorite spaghetti sauce with meat AND the spicy one I like to mix together for my pasta. Let me be clear, when I go shopping, I always by the same FEW things; Barilla angel hair pasta and sauce (Ragu Bolognese and Arrabbiata), tortellini with meat, sliced cheese and luncheon meat, flavored water, tzitziki, lemon juice, washed leafy salad, cut-up fruit and if I feel like affording them pine nuts. Well inevitably, I I would end up going to no less than 4 (four!) SUPERMARKETS before getting all the things I wanted to buy to eat for 3 days!

Granted, I never expect much out of the budget shop in my neighborhood. There it is always hit or miss. What I haven't gotten until now is that it is just as hit and miss with all the other, so called premium markets too!

I had the nerve to even ask on Saturday at the first store, since they didn't have the Ragu Bolognese on the shelf, when they would have it in since a) I had bought it there before and b) I only assume it is one of the more popular varieties from Barilla. Instead or either going to check the system or giving an at least valid if not entirely unacceptable "I'm sorry, I don't know.", the 2 assistants I happened to ask would rather just lie off the tops of their heads. "If is not on the shelf then we don't carry it. Yeah we might have it on offer from time to time but we don't keep it in our regular assortment." You know, all I want is an opportunity to plan, just let me at least know WHEN you will have it so I can save myself a fcukin trip over here!

Well it is a bit strong to call them all liars, but I encounter these kind of uninformed responses so regularly that I cannot help but believe that there is something else at play here. It just occurs to me that perhaps the assistants want so much to give a correct answer that they would rather make up something that sounds plausible than just admitting the truth, that they don't know it, or to at least find someone who does.

I have really given up on being able to one-stop shop. I am resigned to believe that it doesn't really matter what I want to buy for dinner, I will never be able to in one location.

:-(

[image: "Untitled" Paying the bill at Tim's Deli, Schöneberg, Berlin, Feburary 2001. Courtesy of the blogger. ]