Shopping - It's an Adventure!

At the Checkout

The scene: Time to go grocery shopping. I start by taking the lift from our 7th floor flat to the car park in the basement of our building. Enter the car on the right hand side, shift using my left hand, and engage the turn signal which is on the right side of the steering column. Exit the car park and drive in the left hand lane to the store and park in a narrow parking space in the lot. I could have parked on the street, but I haven't yet mastered parallel parking in reverse :-> I enter a popular market called Cole's, and proceed to the row of grocery carts. They are about 3/4 the size of US grocery carts, and locked together. I take out a $1 coin and insert it into the red slot at the front "child's seat" section of the cart and it separates from the others. I'll get the coin back when I return the cart.

I cruise the aisles, searching for foods that are familiar. Hmm... Uncle Toby's muesli bars, Tim Tam biscuits, king prawns, Sea Kist tuna steak, and... vegemite. It really does exist! It's a small brown jar filled with brown goo the consistency of syrup. Smells to high heaven. Keep going, past the Heinz beans and Gravox gravy mix and ... yes, it's Old El Paso! Crispy taco shells, taco sauce and flour tortillas. There's one brand of most items, but about 5 brands of yogurt and 100 kinds of feta cheese (I'm only slightly exaggerating). I select a quart of "Hi Lo" milk (lowfat), which is the largest size available, and go to the meat counter for some scotch fillet aka ribeye steak. It comes in pieces about the size of a fist and weigh - did I mention we're metric here? - about 150-200 grams each. On the way to the checkout stand I pass the drinks section and decide to buy a bottle of Diet Coke, but a 50cl bottle costs $2.50 Do I really want it? Yeah, throw caution to the wind.

There's a queue at the checkout, but soon it's my turn. There are food displays all around the checkout stand, but not a magazine, candy bar or gift card in sight. I load my fantastic fresh veggies onto the child-sized conveyor belt as the cashier rings up my purchases. "How yer goin'?" she asks with a smile. The total for 9 items is $87.66.  Trying not to choke, I fish through my wallet and retrieve a yellow ($50), red ($20), blue ($10) and purple ($5) note, plus a dime-sized, extra-thick gold coin ($2), a 12-sided silver coin (50 cents), a 10-cent coin and a smaller 5-cent coin. They don't use pennies here, they just round up or down and assume it will even out eventually.  "Did you bring a carrier bag with you?" Bring my own bag? Nope. "Would you like to pay 10 cents for a plastic bag?  I can't bring myself to pay for something that's always been free. I notice there are at least 4 different designs of "recycle" bags for sale for 99 cents each. Not bad, so I buy a cute red one, and notice that all profits from the sale of the bags go to local charities. My purchase will help someone else too.

So... friendly people, tasty but expensive food, really expensive imported stuff like Coke and anything that isn't straight from a Western Australian farm. Small quantities and little packages. Works great on the small stove tops, small ovens and even smaller storage containers. Almost everything is smaller here. With prices like these, we waste almost nothing. I thank the cashier, take my bag and return my cart to get the $1 coin back. I'm going to need it!