part 5
I was writing about a two week ski trip I went on with a French woman. We had just arrived at a megacenter grocery store somewhere in the suburbs of Paris. We were moving around the store picking out food items.
I found the cheese section. One of the worst things about shopping is when people camp in front of what you want. You’ve already spotted that one thing you want. It’s only a block of cheese. You’ve been eating cheese for years, and by now, you know what kinds of cheese you like. You’re smart enough to know that your time is valuable; so when you can’t decide between two cheese, you either buy both, or you buy one this week and you buy the other one the next week. Deciding takes two seconds. The cheese you want is three feet away. You just need to reach it. It won’t take three seconds to open the cabinet door and take out the cheese.
Thus, I stood in front of the shelves of cheese that I wanted, the dry cheeses, but they were blocked by a throng of people who simply stood still in front of the cheese.
The people camped out in front of the door took up so much space that there was no way to get around them and open the glass door. They were chatting among themselves. Although they were looking at the cheese, what they are actually talking about had nothing to do with cheese. They were discussing the wallpaper in the mother’s kitchen. I said “excuse me” loud and in their ears, but they did not respond. These people would not budge, no matter what. I repeated myself and, again, no response. Whenever this happens, it’s usually a big family or a group of knuckleheads in college. Today, it was a middle aged family group. They would not make up their minds about the cheese, no matter what, so they kept yammering on about the Mother’s wallpaper.
I peered over their shoulders and looked at a block of dry manchego, a cheese that is nice for its ability to travel without needing refrigeration. It is made of goat milk and not cow milk, and therefore, it was easily digested. I tried to squeeze past the crowd that was blocking the cheese. They would not move. They just stood there staring at the cheese and gossiping about their mother’s wallpaper..
“Excuse me,” I said in French.
They did not budge. The cheese was just out of my reach.
“Excuse me,” I said again in French.
They continued to stare at the cheese for a few more minutes.
“Pardon me,” I said.
They did not respond.
“It’s not real estate people. Make up your minds and get the fsck out of the way,” I said.
This is probably the first time in my life that I have been driven to swear at strangers, but this is the kind of thing that rubs me wrong.
Still, they did not move. Finally, I shoved three of the lollygagging people aside and grabbed the cheese I wanted.
“Excusez moi!” one of the said.
I could not take much more of this, yet this is how the suburban world spend their Saturdays. I put the cheese in the cart which I had parked off to the side and out of everyones way. Drusila saw the cheese.
“Why are you picking out cheese and yogurt? That’s dairy. You just said you were allergic,” Drusilla said.
She looked annoyed but not curious and not puzzled. She had the surly look of someone who is convinced that she has had all of the answers to life’s questions since the age of eleven. Manchego is a well-known variety of cheese, and most people know it is made from sheep milk. Another Red Flag on the grounds of being intellectually incompatible and ornery.
“It’s goat cheese. I can eat it,” I said.
There is more to it, but I was too tired to explain. Even if it were cow cheese, I could still probably eat it. The reason is complicated, but basically, the proteins like casein, whey, and lactose that trigger the allergy are broken down in the chemical reactions that produce some cheeses, especially dry cheeses, and yogurts.
“Suit yourself.”
It’s excruciating to argue with somebody who questions everything you say and do and who is so sure of herself that she believes she knows all of the answers. I’ve never met Hilary Clinton, but the former First Lady came across the same way in interviews, the news, and even in her own books she has written.
Next, Drusilla found the cardboard tasting factory tomatoes. Then the potatoes. I suppressed a groan each time. She had stopped picking out food that was poisonous to me and started picking out things that were only disgusting and so cheap and heavy that it was not economically worth it to transport them 500 miles.
I’ve forgotten the exact costs of fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle, but very roughly, the cost of transporting 100 kilograms is 0.10$ per mile. By the end of the shopping excursion, we would have about 100 kilograms of food, and we were going to haul it 500 miles. Do the math. It cost $50 to haul all of these potatoes, rootabegas, tomatoes, bottled water (which she picked out!!!), etc. to the ski resort. That nullified any cost savings of buying the groceries in Paris. Even if transport hadn’t been expenseive, the unpleasant experience of going to the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon would have made it not worth it.
“Let’s get some fruit. How about oranges, peaches, kiwis, apples. Even lettuce is better than those store tomatoes.” I said.
I picked out some oranges and apples.
“no they cost too much…” she said.
“ I’ll pay for them.”
She shrugged. I got them. They were the same price as the same fruit sold in teh USA. Why does she have a job if the only food she will buy with her salary is the cheap, crappy rooty food that grows underground (onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, rutabegas, etc).
She picked out some grapefruit. The one fruit that is so bitter as to be inedible happens to be the only fruit she likes. I did not make a comment. Another Red Flag for liking disgusting crap that retirees in Florida eat.
I picked out some eggs. I got a box of thirty. They were cheap and that was enough to last two weeks.
“What are you doing with those eggs? Are you going to eat that many?
“yes,” I said.
She peered at the carton with her beady black eyes.
“They are not Bio eggs,” she said.
“They’re free range eggs;” I said.
“That’s not good enough. They have to be BIO. BIO is the same as ‘organic‘ in America. It means they are free of pesticides, hormones, and have special growing conditions.”
“In the US, the “Organic” label means nothing. It’s just an advertising gimmick everybody uses, no matter how the food was grown. That’s not a good thing to go by. It is just as likely to have pesticides and growth hormones as any other label. Consumer groups have studied the claims of ‘certified organic’ labelling in the US. Only a little was what it claimed to be but a large proportion was not. You have to research each product to know for sure. I have not researched the “BIO” certification of French groceries, but I had assumed it was bogus like the American Organic label.
“Get the BIO,” she said.
“Do you trust BIO?”
“Just get it,” she said.
I had been warned that many French women were bossy.
I couldn’t care less about BIO or organic. Even non-organic French food is of better quality than American “organic.” Concerning eggs, you can tell that it is better by the color of the yolk and the flavor of the egg. It is orange and the flavor is richer. American eggs yolks are lemon yellow. The shells of French eggs, BIO or not, are stronger too. It takes a solid tap to open one, but an American store egg cracks with the slightest pressure. But, I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care less. I had enough of that place.
The truth is that unless you raise the eggs yourself from your own chickens or have an egg lady, which I had while Iived in Portland, who raises the eggs herself and delivers them to your door, you have no way of knowing
“BIO is was trustworthy. French food has better oversight.”
“OK, fine.”
The BIO eggs were sold in packages of six and ten, costing 3 and 5 dollars, respectively. They cost three times as much as the “free range” eggs which I had been eating since I arrived. I cannot justify spending so much on ordinary eggs. There’s a famine in Africa.
I knew Drusilla was an intelligent woman in terms of IQ and ability to learn, yet it was clear that we were not intellectually compatible. She was failing to correctly process new information - she was “always right,” in her mind. She had a lot of bad and incomplete information that she took as gospel. In turn, she tried to push her bad ideas onto me. She expected me to hear and obey without questioning her. I have since been told that this was normal female behavior in France.
We all have blind spots into our own shortcomings, we have internal inconsistencies, and we are hypocritical in some ways; and this woman had already revealed more than her share. That wasn’t the bad part. It was her aggressiveness in maintaining her bad ideas that made the behavior unbearable and made her unattractive. This is why I don’t trust most old people. Old people are in “ruts” in their ways of thinking, their personalities, and their ways of doing things. It all gets worse with age.
Anyway, it boggled my mind that someone who cared about the BIO hype so much as to fight about it would shop at a large chain grocery store instead of any of the numerous coops or small markets in the area.
I was writing about a two week ski trip I went on with a French woman. We had just arrived at a megacenter grocery store somewhere in the suburbs of Paris. We were moving around the store picking out food items.
I found the cheese section. One of the worst things about shopping is when people camp in front of what you want. You’ve already spotted that one thing you want. It’s only a block of cheese. You’ve been eating cheese for years, and by now, you know what kinds of cheese you like. You’re smart enough to know that your time is valuable; so when you can’t decide between two cheese, you either buy both, or you buy one this week and you buy the other one the next week. Deciding takes two seconds. The cheese you want is three feet away. You just need to reach it. It won’t take three seconds to open the cabinet door and take out the cheese.
Thus, I stood in front of the shelves of cheese that I wanted, the dry cheeses, but they were blocked by a throng of people who simply stood still in front of the cheese.
The people camped out in front of the door took up so much space that there was no way to get around them and open the glass door. They were chatting among themselves. Although they were looking at the cheese, what they are actually talking about had nothing to do with cheese. They were discussing the wallpaper in the mother’s kitchen. I said “excuse me” loud and in their ears, but they did not respond. These people would not budge, no matter what. I repeated myself and, again, no response. Whenever this happens, it’s usually a big family or a group of knuckleheads in college. Today, it was a middle aged family group. They would not make up their minds about the cheese, no matter what, so they kept yammering on about the Mother’s wallpaper.
I peered over their shoulders and looked at a block of dry manchego, a cheese that is nice for its ability to travel without needing refrigeration. It is made of goat milk and not cow milk, and therefore, it was easily digested. I tried to squeeze past the crowd that was blocking the cheese. They would not move. They just stood there staring at the cheese and gossiping about their mother’s wallpaper..
“Excuse me,” I said in French.
They did not budge. The cheese was just out of my reach.
“Excuse me,” I said again in French.
They continued to stare at the cheese for a few more minutes.
“Pardon me,” I said.
They did not respond.
“It’s not real estate people. Make up your minds and get the fsck out of the way,” I said.
This is probably the first time in my life that I have been driven to swear at strangers, but this is the kind of thing that rubs me wrong.
Still, they did not move. Finally, I shoved three of the lollygagging people aside and grabbed the cheese I wanted.
“Excusez moi!” one of the said.
I could not take much more of this, yet this is how the suburban world spend their Saturdays. I put the cheese in the cart which I had parked off to the side and out of everyones way. Drusila saw the cheese.
“Why are you picking out cheese and yogurt? That’s dairy. You just said you were allergic,” Drusilla said.
She looked annoyed but not curious and not puzzled. She had the surly look of someone who is convinced that she has had all of the answers to life’s questions since the age of eleven. Manchego is a well-known variety of cheese, and most people know it is made from sheep milk. Another Red Flag on the grounds of being intellectually incompatible and ornery.
“It’s goat cheese. I can eat it,” I said.
There is more to it, but I was too tired to explain. Even if it were cow cheese, I could still probably eat it. The reason is complicated, but basically, the proteins like casein, whey, and lactose that trigger the allergy are broken down in the chemical reactions that produce some cheeses, especially dry cheeses, and yogurts.
“Suit yourself.”
It’s excruciating to argue with somebody who questions everything you say and do and who is so sure of herself that she believes she knows all of the answers. I’ve never met Hilary Clinton, but the former First Lady came across the same way in interviews, the news, and even in her own books she has written.
Next, Drusilla found the cardboard tasting factory tomatoes. Then the potatoes. I suppressed a groan each time. She had stopped picking out food that was poisonous to me and started picking out things that were only disgusting and so cheap and heavy that it was not economically worth it to transport them 500 miles.
I’ve forgotten the exact costs of fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle, but very roughly, the cost of transporting 100 kilograms is 0.10$ per mile. By the end of the shopping excursion, we would have about 100 kilograms of food, and we were going to haul it 500 miles. Do the math. It cost $50 to haul all of these potatoes, rootabegas, tomatoes, bottled water (which she picked out!!!), etc. to the ski resort. That nullified any cost savings of buying the groceries in Paris. Even if transport hadn’t been expenseive, the unpleasant experience of going to the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon would have made it not worth it.
“Let’s get some fruit. How about oranges, peaches, kiwis, apples. Even lettuce is better than those store tomatoes.” I said.
I picked out some oranges and apples.
“no they cost too much…” she said.
“ I’ll pay for them.”
She shrugged. I got them. They were the same price as the same fruit sold in teh USA. Why does she have a job if the only food she will buy with her salary is the cheap, crappy rooty food that grows underground (onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, rutabegas, etc).
She picked out some grapefruit. The one fruit that is so bitter as to be inedible happens to be the only fruit she likes. I did not make a comment. Another Red Flag for liking disgusting crap that retirees in Florida eat.
I picked out some eggs. I got a box of thirty. They were cheap and that was enough to last two weeks.
“What are you doing with those eggs? Are you going to eat that many?
“yes,” I said.
She peered at the carton with her beady black eyes.
“They are not Bio eggs,” she said.
“They’re free range eggs;” I said.
“That’s not good enough. They have to be BIO. BIO is the same as ‘organic‘ in America. It means they are free of pesticides, hormones, and have special growing conditions.”
“In the US, the “Organic” label means nothing. It’s just an advertising gimmick everybody uses, no matter how the food was grown. That’s not a good thing to go by. It is just as likely to have pesticides and growth hormones as any other label. Consumer groups have studied the claims of ‘certified organic’ labelling in the US. Only a little was what it claimed to be but a large proportion was not. You have to research each product to know for sure. I have not researched the “BIO” certification of French groceries, but I had assumed it was bogus like the American Organic label.
“Get the BIO,” she said.
“Do you trust BIO?”
“Just get it,” she said.
I had been warned that many French women were bossy.
I couldn’t care less about BIO or organic. Even non-organic French food is of better quality than American “organic.” Concerning eggs, you can tell that it is better by the color of the yolk and the flavor of the egg. It is orange and the flavor is richer. American eggs yolks are lemon yellow. The shells of French eggs, BIO or not, are stronger too. It takes a solid tap to open one, but an American store egg cracks with the slightest pressure. But, I just didn’t care. I couldn’t care less. I had enough of that place.
The truth is that unless you raise the eggs yourself from your own chickens or have an egg lady, which I had while Iived in Portland, who raises the eggs herself and delivers them to your door, you have no way of knowing
“BIO is was trustworthy. French food has better oversight.”
“OK, fine.”
The BIO eggs were sold in packages of six and ten, costing 3 and 5 dollars, respectively. They cost three times as much as the “free range” eggs which I had been eating since I arrived. I cannot justify spending so much on ordinary eggs. There’s a famine in Africa.
I knew Drusilla was an intelligent woman in terms of IQ and ability to learn, yet it was clear that we were not intellectually compatible. She was failing to correctly process new information - she was “always right,” in her mind. She had a lot of bad and incomplete information that she took as gospel. In turn, she tried to push her bad ideas onto me. She expected me to hear and obey without questioning her. I have since been told that this was normal female behavior in France.
We all have blind spots into our own shortcomings, we have internal inconsistencies, and we are hypocritical in some ways; and this woman had already revealed more than her share. That wasn’t the bad part. It was her aggressiveness in maintaining her bad ideas that made the behavior unbearable and made her unattractive. This is why I don’t trust most old people. Old people are in “ruts” in their ways of thinking, their personalities, and their ways of doing things. It all gets worse with age.
Anyway, it boggled my mind that someone who cared about the BIO hype so much as to fight about it would shop at a large chain grocery store instead of any of the numerous coops or small markets in the area.
