Grocery Thief at the Safeway

Brett and I went to Safeway today to stock up on some American food. We were checking out and I noticed an elderly man at the end of the register putting a few of our groceries in a bag. I thought he was the customer in front of Brett, so walked over and said politely "I think those are ours." The man said "I know." Brett jumped in and said "Lori - they bag groceries for you here. Remember?" Oops. I felt like such an idiot and apologized profusely to the poor bag packer who continued to look at me like I was crazy.

In Amsterdam grocery shopping is a little more self serve. You unpack your basket and then have to furiously start packing everything up before the next person's stuff comes streaming down the belt - stopping to quickly pay somewhere in the process. They have a little dividing bar to make sure customer groceries don't mix - but we've still been caught "holding up the line" with bigger grocery purchases when the 3rd person in line is trying to get their groceries packed up, the 2nd person is still packing, and we haven't finished. Then you see the looks of disapproval from the customers behind you and the occasional annoyed look on the cashier's face.

That poor bag packer at Safeway. He probably thought the crazy lady was being mean to him - accusing him of stealing her groceries when he was just doing his job. Have I really been gone that long that I've forgotten standard grocery store protocol? Geesh. I'm an idiot (or jet lagged, or both :-)