So, I really shouldn't be writing this. I should be showering and heading to bed because my alarm rings bright and early at 6:30 am (and my boyfriend's alarm at 5:45) but I am rebelling against my better judgement. When did I ever care about going to bed early anyway? (Answer: around 25, which is apparently the age where everything starts going downhill)
I was in the grocery store today. I wanted to get there "early," meaning, before the lunchtime crowd of local workers looking for a quick bite to eat hit the registers. Unfortunately either they were early or I was late, and I ended up in a lengthy line anyway.
I picked out the ingredients for my lunch (a spinach salad with marinated artichoke hearts and sundried tomatoes, for those who are interested) and headed towards the checkout line.
I got there at exactly the same time as a woman carrying a box of stuff. For those who aren't familiar with German supermarkets, food is simply taken off the truck and put on the shelves in the boxes it came in. If you want an entire 6 pack of 1.5L water bottles - no problem! Just grab a whole pack. The system is kind of like a) you want to buy a 12 pack of coke -- grab the whole pack. If you want to just buy 3, then b) open the 12 pack and pull out 3 cans. If you don't need a ton of stuff, you just grab an empty box from an item that people previously picked out of and use that as your shopping bag. Also, it's important to note that you have to purchase your shopping bags here. And the cashier doesn't bag them for you. The whole checkout process is an extremely stressful situation in which you try to gauge exactly how many bags you need and pack them while simultaneously paying and getting your change and getting out of the way because the cashier is already ringing up the next person 1 second after she hands you your receipt and says "Have a nice day."
But I digress. Again, I knew I shouldn't be writing this late. Anyhoo, this lady was holding a box of foodstuffs and we got to the line at the exact same time. I arrived from the left, she arrived from dead-on straight. I didn't even really look at her. Germans either don't make eye contact, or go full on creepy. I am not comfortable with Option 2 so I always just kind of look everywhere except at that person. As we waited, the person in front of us moved up about .678 steps. I waited a few seconds to see if she would take the spot. She didn't. So, per German custom, I did.
The conveyor belt with all the items from the entire line was slowly moving forward. The man in front of me was really dragging his feet and finally I had enough space in front of the conveyor to lay down my meager foodstuffs for the salad. There were probably about 2 centimeters between the end of the conveyor and the end of my purchase.
Suddenly someone shoved me from behind. The woman behind me was literally shoving me out of the way so she could set down her purchase items.
"Excuse me, I just need some space. I'm Hochschwanger [literally translated: high pregnant; figuratively: about to pop]," she sniped. Using polite words in a tone that threatened to punch me in the face if I suggested otherwise -- typically German. They love writing passive aggressive notes like "Dear neighbor: I noticed during the last World Cup game, during which Germany won (Go Germany!) that you and your friends were having a party in our shared courtyard. You left some beer cans, kept our children awake, and I also saw several people relieving themselves in the foliage. Thank you very much for not doing this in the future," meaning if you do this again they will come down from their apartment and punch you in the face.
Back to the story.. She shoved me aside and mentioned SPECIFICALLY that she is high pregnant. And that she is "fed up with asozial people." Asozial (or azzies for short) is an innocent sounding insult in English. But in German it's pretty strong. Like, rednecks who beat their wives all the time are asozial. Or people who just hang out in the corner stores (Spaetis) all day and drink beer and start fights. The low rungs of society are filled with them - so when you say it, you are seriously serious.
While I charted her rudeness up to fluctuating crazy pregnant woman hormones, it did piss me off. Actually, I didn't realize you were pregnant. You were too busy balancing that huge box of candy and whatnot on top of your baby belly, hiding it from view. ON TOP OF YOUR BABY. Since when did using your stomach as a shelf become OK? How did you plan on carrying that shit home if you can't even hold it for 30 seconds in a grocery store? Believe me, if I could make the cashier go any faster, I would. And since when did your growing a baby become my problem? It's not like I jumped in the only available seat on a 7 hour bus ride and refused to give it up. Wow, you had to carry your gummy bears 30 seconds more before the conveyor belt moved enough for your stuff. I've never had a baby, never been hochschwanger, but from what I understand -- birth is a pretty serious thing. If you're getting flustered because you have to carry your snacks for a minute more, I don't want to know what your labor is going to be like.
I just ignored her, reminding myself that she is basically growing a living moving tumor inside of her body -- but I just had to write something about it. Get it out of my system. And then a few years later look back and laugh at the time I was called Asozial.
Asozial.. Jeezus. Hopefully the first and last time in my life anyone ever calls me that.
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