Whole Foods

On Sunday morning, I found myself in tears in the grocery store parking lot. I was not crying because I am going to miss the overly bright tenuously stocked aisles of the Mega Image, but rather because I had been yelled at a group of total strangers, again, while trying to obtain a fiscal receipt.

A fiscal receipt is a complicated form that shows how much tax was paid on a purchase. Merchants hate to fill them out, and I would too, quite frankly, as they are written in longhand, filled out in triplicate, and require the use of a calculator. As a result, most establishments only have maybe one person who can fill out this form. And that person is usually in a bad mood.

After politely waiting in line with my groceries for nearly twenty minutes and paying for my purchases, the cashier handed off my receipt to a cashier in another line to fill out my fiscal receipt. However, everyone else in his line started yelling, at the cashier, at me, at the state of the Romanian tax system in general.

I think that it was just the sheer amount of yelling this time that made my eyes tear up. If it were America, well I wouldn't have to be going through this ridiculous procedure, but if it were I would stand my ground. Unfortunately, my Romanian is really not up to a fighting level. It was a rather ignominious ending to two years of shopping in Bucharest. Any other groceries that my family needs in the next two weeks are going to be the sole responsibility of my husband. I quit.

Saying goodbye to my friends in the market was another story. I will genuinely miss our weekly pilgrimages to Argentina and Catalina's fantastic fruit and vegetable stall. They are the epitome of small entrepreneurs, selling hard to find luxuries like pineapples, sweet potatoes, and seedless grapes. Their produce is always fresh. They love Miss Bee and have watched her grow up. And they are really, really kind.

We were all sad to say goodbye to each other; I am certain they will miss our business! We brought chocolates, they stuffed a huge bag full of an assortment of fresh fruit, and they joked they would come visit us in America. You know, I wouldn't mind it at all if they did.