Meltdown on Aisle 23

It's 44,000 I insisted, pointing at the receipt. 

She shook her head firmly and repeated 45,000 as she pointed at the different prices on the thin plastic bags. 

I tried to reason with her, that 47 minus 3 was 44, but she adamantly refused to budge. 

Can you please add it up again? I asked, but she didn't understand. So I opened up my phone calculator, even though she had a huge handheld calculator right in front of her, and started to put the prices of each bag of produce in. She held up bag by bag and I patiently typed in the numbers, ensuring she saw each one and approved. 

When she saw the total, she shook her head in disbelief. 

Are you going shopping anytime soon? I asked my flatmate but she isn't going til Friday, M had messaged me earlier that day. I'd gone a couple days ago, but it had been a rush trip and I was up for a quick jaunt to the Aoun at the bottom of the hill. We set a time, I hurried home to eat reheated leftovers for dinner, and then I messaged her that I was ready to go. 

About 10 minutes later, I had maneuvered my car around 2 unyielding drivers, found a parking spot, and we had grabbed our bright orange handcarts with long slide-in black handles in preparation for the evening's shop. 

Let's go to the fruits and vegetables first? M suggested and I agreed. I needed to get some fruit. We pulled our little carts behind us and once we reached the other section of the store, I headed for the outside to check on any good deals. I found apples, mostly bruised but a few still in fairly good condition, for 7,500 a kilo. After carefully picking through, putting miniature rosy-cheeked apples into my plastic bag, I decided I had enough to make dehydrated apples and possibly a bit of applesauce too. 

Inside, I put 3 clusters of tan grapes, 5 nectarines, 8 plums, and 6 carrots into separate bags. Then I went to weigh everything. The man rang up the apples wrong, insisting they were correct. I sighed heavily, deciding to wait until he had finished ringing everything else up so I wouldn't lose my place in line and could go check the price on the little cardboard sign again. He noticed my frustration and called out to someone, asking what price the apples were. They confirmed the apples were 7,500 so he printed out a new sticker. 

After verifying all the prices, I took my bags over to the cashier. The lady scanned the first bag, scanned the second bag, put the third bag through, and scanned the second bag again. I stood there, a little confused by her system. After she finished scanning all the bags, I did a quick mental count of the total showing on the screen and said, Something is wrong. Can you please show me the receipt?

She printed out the receipt and I immediately saw the same item showing up twice. I pointed it out to her, but she didn't understand. After checking the receipt a couple of times, she went through line by line and understood that she had rung up one item twice and another had been missed. 

The difference was 3,000 or the equivalent of 10 cents. She agreed she would refund me the difference, then, looking at the original receipt she had printed out which displayed a total of 47,000 she informed me that I had to pay 45,000.

I looked at her incredulously. No, I have to pay 44,000. 47 minus 3 is 44, I said, even though I knew she didn't understand much English. 

She shook her head. For some reason, 45,000 made sense to her and was stuck in her mind. Here we were, debating the total of 3 cents but I couldn't just pay the difference and let it go. I was sick and tired of the system cheating me and I was not going to leave until I paid the correct amount. 

After much going back and forth, with my calculations only confirming what I had originally said, she shook her head again in amazement, as if it was my fault, and begrudgingly gave me my change. I thanked her, swept up my bags, and hurried around the corner. A little old man clad in a security jacket and beige pants sat on a chair in the hallway. To my left was a booth of sorts, next to the door that led shoppers back into the main store, and between the booth and the security guard was a corner of employee lockers. 

In a moment, I felt panic overtake me. I hurried to the corner, faced the beige metal doors, and began to cry. My whole body started shaking as the sobs overtook me, silent but strong. I instinctively knew to let the panic come and pass through, rather than try to repress it. For about 30 seconds, my body shook with convulsive tears, until I told myself, It's enough for now. I checked my purse; no tissues. I wiped my eyes with a quick back swipe of my hand, straightened up, and turned to the door. 

For several minutes, I wandered around the store, past the coffee and teas aisle, past the cereals, into the olive oil aisle, stopping to look at the price of pesto. Tears still rolled down my cheeks and I wiped them away, passing people who didn't give me a second look. As if it was normal to be crying in the pasta aisle. As I put bags of white and brown bread into my cart, I whispered beneath my mask, God, please help me, I can't do this anymore. 

Somehow, that helped. In that moment, God's strength lifted me up and the thought came to mind, Find something nice to enjoy. I spotted my favourite bubbly non-alcoholic drink and decided to buy one for M to celebrate her first year of full-time teaching. I got one for myself also and headed to the checkout to ring up my final purchases. There, the cashier was quick and professional, her long manicured nails tapping out the bar code prices of the bread bags. My favourite bagger appeared when he saw me and cheerily carried my bags out to the car, asking where Mr. (my husband) was. I turned on the a/c, a luxury in these times, and M and I sat in the car enjoying a toast with the bubbly as we chatted about life and its challenges. 

By the time I'd reached home, I was okay. At the same time, I knew I was not really okay. Life was abnormal and things were reaching a critical mass. It was more than culture shock mixed with a dash of jetlag. It was me telling myself that I'd reached the limit of my endurance. A limit no amount of prayer or encouragement could move. The feeling of being out of control of something as small as a simple grocery shop would only compound and one day, I knew, I would finally say, I've had it, and that would be it.