Just Another Day In Lulu

I make my groceries once every week. I normally buy necessities like water, vegetables, fish and meat. Sometimes I also need to buy some personal stuff and small treats like one or two corn chips.

Last Friday I went to Lulu Hypermart to buy my groceries. I made my usual round shopping for my week’s provision.

My first stop is the fish section. There were quite a lot of customers by the fish counter. Everyone is trying to get the assistant’s attention, pare, my friend, bai, every friendly word you might think of. I was standing there for about 10 minutes but no luck. When I noticed on my left side, a churchmate of mine was also trying to get some service. Then another churchmate came by. One of mine churchmate came with an idea to have a quick service and 100% sure that the assistant will get you noticed. He said, “My friend, give me a kilo of this fish without cleaning”. As quick as the flash my churchmate got his fish. Me and the other churchmate employ the same strategy and we end up buying the same fish.

My second stop is the vegetable section. The downside of the vegetable section is the weighing scale. It is always a very busy section. You would be thankful if you manage to queue before an Indian expats. Indian’s likes vegetables, more often than not, their shopping cart is half full of vegetables.

My third stop is the bakery section for a bread, cakes or cookies.

My fourth stop is the various goods aisles to take some water, softdrink, canned food, condiments, small treats, etc.

My last stop is the meat and poultry section. You got it right, for a chicken, a mutton or beef.

And then to the cashier.

As the cashier was scanning my groceries, I grab my wallet from my back pocket to ready my payment. Surprisingly, my card was not in my wallet. I later found out that it was in my shirt’s pocket as I was hanging my laundry to dry. I ended up paying cash. As the cashier hand over my change, he gave a bar of candy.

“What is this?”, I asked.

“Your change” he replied.

“Yes I know it is my change, what is this candy bar for?”, I inquire.

“Your change, I don’t have 50 dirhams”, he arrogantly replied.

I responded, “I want my 50 dirhams, you want me to pay you with candies?”, he keeps quiet and gave me my 50 dirhams.

I don’t buy into this supermarket tactics. If I want candies, I will buy candies. They don’t have the right to force me to pay for a candy. If they give candies or gums as change, then they should accept their customer to pay with candies or gums. I just can’t imagine how a candy register looks like.