Ready, get set, checkout!

I spread out grocery items from the basket on the belt near checkout desk and see them roll towards the cashier one by one. I have my plastic bag ready. The person next to me is paying. It could be any moment now. As soon as the cashier turns towards me, I will dart forward and start bagging items being scanned at the speed of light. Baggers, like the ones in Big Bazaar back in India, are extremely rare here. You have to do it yourself. It would be easy, had cashiers been a little slower. You haven’t grabbed half of the items and they are already ready with your bill. While you scramble to bag and pay, you notice the line of people behind you, eyeing you patiently. Oh the social pressure! “Thou shall not cause unnecessary delay.”

“Fünfzehn Euro zweiundzwanzig”, she (the cashier) says. That is 15.22. I look at the billing display to ensure I heard and understood correctly. Paying with cash is a disaster, I tell you. You don’t want to be sorting coins and seeing which is which, while people wait. After great efforts, I give her a 20 Euro note and 22 cents in coins. At least I’m getting rid of some coins. But dear god, she refuses the cents and contributes 4.78 to the ever increasing stockpile of coins at home (cashiers are funny sometimes). Once everything is paid and packed, I give her a relieved smile and say goodbye.

That was my checkout experience in Germany in the first few weeks. But over the time, I became adept at it (It’s wise to pay with card, its authentication process buys you some time!). The cashiers are generally very nice. They greet you with sweet Hallo’s and Tschüss’. Until recently, most human interactions I had outside work were with them. One day, this one old lady cashier was laughing and saying something. I laughed with her even though I did not understand what she said. Later I felt that the interactions would be so much more fun if I spoke German. So I joined a German course two weeks ago and it’s going great so far (met new people, yay!). More about that later. Tschüss!