The art of apple-buying

The weather here was cold for a while, but it has started warming up lately! One day that didn’t seem too cold, I decided to go for a run in a park that’s about a 10 minute walk from my apartment. It was a little chilly, but by the time I was done running it was gorgeous out! I took a roundabout way back to my apartment, walking through a bustling market that happened to be just down the street from me. Cool find! I rushed to get showered and dressed because I had a methodology class at the Sweet Briar office and was running a little late. I went to the grocery store to grab a prepackaged sandwich and apple for my lunch before the class.

I’ve been to other supermarkets where people just grab the fruit they want and bring it to the cash register. So that’s what I did. I set my apple and sandwich on the belt and waited. When I got to the front of the line, the woman at the cash register picked up my apple, looked at it, looked at me, said something rapidly in French about my apple, and waited for my response. Dumbfounded and entirely taken aback by this response, I mumbled “Pardon?” Again, she said something in French. At this point I must have looked like a deer in headlights. All I wanted was my freaking apple! She turned to another worker and gave my apple to her. The first woman rang up my sandwich and waited until the other girl returned. I was holding up the whole line. The girl came back with a printed sticker on my apple, but then she said something to me. The first woman at the cash register turned to her and in French essentially said “Don’t bother, she doesn’t speak French.” I blushed and replied in French, “No, I speak French, just not well.” Frustrated, embarrassed, and with a crushed ego, I took my purchase and went to my class.

Though all grocery stores in France are different, it is important that you be extremely careful when buying produce so you don’t run into a problem like mine. Apparently in some stores, there are scales near the racks of fruits and vegetables and you have to weight your own fruit, press the button for what type of fruit it is, and it will print a fancy little sticker for you to put on the bag. How a foreigner is supposed to know this, I have no idea. Also, although I haven’t encountered this, buying produce at outdoor markets is a tricky endeavor. According to some things I’ve read, you aren’t allowed to touch the produce at outdoor markets, but instead must ask the vendor to pick out the fruit for you based on when the fruit will be consumed. For someone who is not entirely confident in her ability to speak and understand French, this seems too difficult and I’ve thus stayed away from outdoor markets. Although my friend said she bought fruit from an outdoor market and chose her own fruit, though the vendor weighed it for her. So, the moral of the story is, the process of buying produce in foreign countries should be treated with caution!