First I need to explain a couple things about shopping here in Vienna. They do not provide grocery bags, so you need to either bring your own (which is what I usually do) or you need to purchase a bag.
Next, you bag your own groceries. The appropriate way to do this is to put your groceries back in your cart after paying, walk over to the bagging counter, and then pack your bags.
Now, when I go shopping, I cannot use a grocery cart, because I am usually pushing a stroller with two kids in it. So I generally let Elora out of the stroller, hang a bag on the back of the stroller, and stack my goods in the bags or on Elora’s seat. The problem with this method is that you cannot throw all your groceries back into the cart after paying. Instead I am generally rushing to shove everything into my bags as they are being scanned, hoping I can get things mostly packed before I have to pay.
Needless to say, this aspect of shopping is slightly more stressful, because as I said, Elora is usually running about, and if there is a line behind you, it is necessary to rush and move out of the way quickly…
On this particular day I was near our old apartment which sells certain items that I can’t buy near our new house, and some of the food is cheaper, so I loaded up the stroller as full as I could, waited in a huge line, and as I was paying realized that I had not brought all of my shopping bags from home, just one small bag.
As I tried to keep Elora in sight, I shoved things into the stroller at every angle, threw things into my one little bag, and packed my purse as full as I could, and still had to put the laundry detergent on the seat next to Elora, and my new potted plant behind her seat (luckily she didn’t complain about it too much…)
Then we took the train, and hurried to get on our bus. By now it was dinnertime and both the kids were tired and hungry. As I reached into my purse to get Oliver some snacks, I felt something cold and gooey… Oops! I had thrown the yogurt into my purse, and then proceeded to throw four heavy boxes of chopped tomatoes on top of them. Yum. I discreetly wiped off my hand on the inside of my purse, hummed Zip-a-dee-do-da all the way home, and after feeding the kids dinner finally emptied my purse to survey the damage.
Not only had two containers of yogurt exploded in my purse, but it was blueberry yogurt. Nice. The extra white onsie I carry in my purse for Oliver was thrown away, the pieces of paper where I keep my shopping list were carefully deciphered before being thrown away, and thank goodness I had taken my camera out of my purse and forgot to put it back.
This picture shows my poor white wallet (poor choice of colors), and of course, my German dictionary which sits at the bottom of my purse. I wish I had taken a picture of the inside of my purse before washing it, it was a pretty awesome sight. All that junk on the counter is the stuff I emptied out of my purse before washing it (luckily the purse is black and my cell phone and keys were also in a separate pocket and avoided the explosion…)
On this occasion I had to count my blessings – thanks for the camera and cell phone being spared, thanks that the dictionary is stained but still usable with very few pages that stick together, thanks that Chris was in Florida at the time purchasing me a new purse and wallet, thanks that I only lost one out of three containers of yogurt (As Chris said, not only did I get my purse messy, but I didn’t even get to eat the yogurt!), and thanks that this happened on a Wednesday and my turn to use the washing machine in the building is on Thursdays…
Check out our picture gallery for more pictures of our European adventures as well as hiking trips in Utah and family photos.
