Well, my today was not really special, I actually just had two things to do.

1. Go to work
2. Buy some food

Easy! Well, except for the first thing, no.

I prepared well for the second part, having a list of needed things and carryable storage space (aka bags) because I don’t have a car and need to walk a few meters with the stuff I buy. I usually shop food on tuesday every two weeks. But today was different. When I got into the store which is called “Kaufland” (which means ‘Buyland’ literally) there were more people than me. ‘Who wonders’ I thought by myself, but actually there were many more people. I think this store has not seen so many customers for months on tuesdays. There was an enormous line in front of the machines that take bottles back, the people nearly filled all of the entrance area. So I squeezed through to get into the store and collected what I wanted to buy. It was pretty much NO fun because people kept standing in front of me with their shopping carts not letting me through. They even approached me with speed fully aware of the fact that they wouldn’t be able to get past me without making a very big jump or somehow de-materialize. It’s funny that so many people, who drive a big metal vehicle every day without (usually) causing too many crashes by obeying the traffic rules cannot manage to obey the very same rules with a cart in their hands. It’s pretty obvious that it’s dangerous to drive down a lane in the wrong direction, even more so if everybody else (or at least a respectable majority) has agreed on the right direction.

I tried to determine the right lane by applying the common idea to go for the lane on the right hand as is common sense in most countries (Great Britian being one of the few exceptions). Obviously many brits had come here today.
After I realized that nobody was obeying any rules whatsoever, I simply tried to get out there asap. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one having this thought. So when I had my things together and went round the corner I immediately reached the end of another line. Obviously that was not just some line it was THE line. Unfortuneately it was miles away from the checkout (as the picture tries to establish). There were three ways to get there and after a quick visual check I knew that all three ways were indeed filled with long lines.
But not everybody could read the signs so that someone from the store had to go through the line explaining that they were actually in the line for the checkout (yeah!), that they were working on all available cash registers and that it would not take too long.
I didn’t really mind and put one of my ear-plugs in and listened to some music while people around me cursed the day.
When I finally got there it went really smooth, someone from the staff helped me put my things in the cart while I paid then I packed everything into bags and queezed myself and the bags out of the store.
Well, you probably wonder why so many people had decided to go shopping this particual Tuesday evening. Will there be a thunderstorm or a hurricane? Might the river flood the city? Or do we have soccer world championchips again?
No, it’s much simpler: Tomorrow is reformation day and that’s a vacation in some parts of Germany (not everywhere though). You might think that only the people who would usually buy their food on wednesdays would have to go shopping a day earlier. But that’s not the german logic. People probably fear that the stores might remain closed after the vacation and that they will die from starvation and thirst soon after. Unlikely. Yes, but not impossible! That’s why everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) was in stores today completely ignoring the fact that they could also go shopping again in 48 hours.

But it’s not their fault. It’s mine! Knowing this typically human (and german) behaviour I should have timed better. And I probably will some day.

I was then wandering back home carrying my two heavy bags’o’stuff and listening to some music on my iPod. I have one of those sarcastic iPods you know. They always find a nice song to build you up. Mine decided to play “Carry that weight” by the Beatles.
I love those intelligent gadgets. 🙂