Chips ahoy!

February 20, 2013

Food shopping is not as easy as it appears on the commercials. Try finding baking soda when the words bicarbonato de sódio don’t roll easily across the tongue. A special flour and cheese needed for pão de queijo for tonight’s dinner. Takes me three times as long as I expect to scour the entire aisle of flour before I light on the right package. Then I need to send out the posse to find my friends in the massive grocery store.

Now, where on earth would the mustache removal and shaving product be? There are razors (outrageously priced and out of my budget I’m afraid) so onto the other options of unwanted hair elimination. Heat then roll on wax (I am assuming here, based on the pictures on the packaging) and sheets of cut paper to apply, wait for a few minutes then rip off! The plastic bag directions claim “gently tear” but I have heard the screaming from the closed doors in the dipilacao rooms at the salon and know better! Gels, lotions and creams line up like pretty soldiers next to the waxes for soothing the pink and tortured freshly plucked skin? Bleaches and evil looking jars also stand at attention on the same shelf. That could get ugly. Choose to skip over those products. Hate to look like someone suffering from an undesirable and incurable skin disorder. My friends and family would not allow me to leave the country again! In the end I choose to delay my hair elimination for another day.

The chip aisle, sodas and other junk food like cereal are much more recognizable. Marketing techniques are evidently international. Same blinding coloring, similar animal figures face the spectators, familiar names and packaging shapes most of which I do not touch. Empty calories and negative nutritional value. Why bother?

I spent a fair amount of time in the condiments section. It fascinates me to inspect the labels and scrutinize the “food” inside the jar. My usual parameter of not choosing products with ingredients I cannot pronounce is obviously moot. I giggle my way from foot to foot of glass working my brain and tongue around the words I whisper to myself, even attempting a couple of them out loud. Fortunately we do not shop at the same store frequently or they would alert the security guard to take me away as I approach the front door. “She makes the shoppers nervous,” they would certainly claim.  

Oh right, dog food, flea shampoo and non-noxious treats are on the list as well!