Brain Freeze

On Saturday afternoon I was in Wiesbaden, returning some items to the post library. I stopped by this store named METRO. I had never been there before and I was looking for a couple of items, so I decided that I’d check this place out.

It’s very big, like a super Walmart I thought. Nothing really struck my fancy until I got to the “Meat Room”. That’s correct; they have a refrigerated room of meat products. This was not like the walk-in refrigerator at Gib’s during the Kentucky State Fair. This place was larger than my living room, and was full of all types of meat vacuum packed, stacked, and just ready to be thrown into my cart. I was in heaven I tell ya’. They had boxes of marrow bones, oxtails, pigtails, calf knuckles, livers, kidneys … my head was spinning. They even had a cryovaced suckling pig! I picked it up, nuzzled with it for a while, but I didn’t place it in my cart. No, the pig would have to wait for another day.

See, I was also light on cash, and these places only accept EC cards. It’s some kind of European Debit Card or something, and I don’t have one. So I look for the most practical item I can find, and pick up 1.505 kilograms of skin-on pork belly-fat. Oh sure, I could have gone for the eccentric T-Bone or perhaps even gotten a little nutty and picked up some ground beef. But I just wasn’t feeling it that day. I must admit, I was feeling more than a little proud of the practicality of my choice.

I would return this place.

While I continued to view the goods on display, I started to see weird shadows sputter in front of me. At first I thought the lights were flickering. I looked around but no one else seemed to notice it. Then my field of vision started to contract and my head began to hurt. I must be having another aneurism ...

“Damn, I hate it when that happens! “

After almost 30 minutes of walking around in a 36 degree room in a t-shirt and shorts, I reckoned it was time to go. As I walked out of the room, the sound of two young girls chuckling caught the attention of my partially frozen brain. I looked down at my loinal region and cried out to them, “I was in the pool!”

After I calmed down and thawed out some I picked up a few more items and headed for the checkout. German people like to do things at the same time as … well … every other German person it seems. The stores are always so crowded, and everyone seems to be buying enough food to last the summer. I finally get up to the checkout and the girl asks me if I have some kind of card. “Nein”, I reply. I think she is just asking me for a Kroger Card or some savings card. I am waiting for her to start scanning my items, but she gets on the phone and calls for someone who speaks English. Apparently this is some kind of “Members Only” store (like Sam’s Club, not the place Walt buys his jackets), and I’m not one.

The girl who spoke English (very well, I might add) says I can use her card, but explains to me that you need to be a member. “How much is a membership?” I ask. She tells me that you have to be a re-seller (or a merchant of some sort). Visions of that cryovaced suckling pig are suddenly starting to dim. I didn’t believe her, but she was very nice and I was still experiencing some pangs of brain freeze and didn’t want to belabor the point. Anyhow, it was probably just a translation problem. Maybe I’ll check into it later on.

Since it seems that it is going to rain all weekend, I need a project for Sunday. I have just the thing in my cart….