So last night, finding ourselves "out" of such common household items as "dishwashing detergent" and "skim milk," my wife and I visited our local Wal*Mart with the intention of doin' a little shoppin'. Now, I will readily admit that I do most of my shopping, grocery or otherwise, at Wal*Mart, simply because I can save an insane amount of money on my total bill. That said, my rule of thumb when shopping at Wal*Mart has been, for as long as I can remember, "stay the Hell away from the produce." I've never been impressed with the quality of the fruits and vegetables offered by my local Wal*Mart stores, even to the point of being occasionally disgusted by the lack of quality.

Last night, however, things changed considerably...

When my wife and I, ever the optimists, wandered into the produce department, we were both pleasantly surprised, shocked even, at the quality fruits and vegetables that were available. I headed straight for the chiles with hope in my heart and was amazed to find that, not only were the chiles offered for sale healthy and beautiful, but that they had habaneros for the first time...well...ever, as far as I can remember. I myself am a HUGE fan of habaneros, reputedly the hottest chiles which one can buy and consume. I actually find them to be quite enjoyable when used correctly (they do wonders for chicken) and even consider the serrano to have a hotter and more lingering "burn" than the habanero, but that's neither here nor there. After loading up on these smokin' hot little things, I then picked up some of the plumpest, most healthy tomatillos which I've ever come across to compliment the habaneros. I was overjoyed! An onion or two and some garlic later and, soon enough, it was time to roll our produce-laden cart up to a checkout line and...well..."Check out." I guess...

Anyway...

Soon enough, amongst the other junk which we purchased yesterday evening, along came the bag of habaneros. The young checkout girl picked up the bag and gave it's contents a puzzled look. She then picked up her "handy produce reference chart" (replete with pictures) to try and find a code which she could then enter into the register so that we could pay for these hot little pods o' joy. She scanned that sheet 3 or 4 times before finally asking us what exactly was in the bag. When we replied "habaneros," almost in unison, she gave us a cockeyed look, checked the double-sided picture card again and shook her head. "I can't find it on here," she said, her frustration obviously mounting. She then handed the card over to me and asked if I saw anything resembling habaneros on it. I scanned both sides of the card and, ultimately, was satisfied that habaneros, in fact, were NOT featured on the card at all. The checker then sat the chiles aside and turned on her "help light." She then proceeded to scan the rest of our items while we waited for, presumably, someone more knowledgeable about produce to help out...

Ironically, that person never showed up. We did, however, get an "assistant manager." That encounter went something like this:

Assistant manager shows up, gets filled in on the situation by checkout girl, picks up bag of habaneros, stares at them, looks at checkout girl, checkout girl shrugs, assistant looks at me and asks the very pointed question "what exactly are these?"

Habaneros, I reply...(they look like this):


"Jalabañeros," the assistant says, seemingly correcting me, acting quite smug that SHE knows EXACTLY how to pronounce such a complicated word, not like myself, a stupid gringo who doesn't even know what he puts in his own cart...She proceeds to scan the aforementioned picture card and, when she does not find this elusive "jalabanero pepper," she indignantly pages for "someone in produce" to call whichever station we were checking out at. After waiting for the call back for all of 3 seconds, she storms off, telling poor checkout girl that "she'll be back."

After the assistant disappeared, my wife asked me "was there even a code on the basket they were in?"

Nope, I replied, there wasn't...I checked, too, 'cause these things go for almost 9 bucks as pound at Safeway.

After a minute or two, the assistant returned, a produce department worker in tow. She grabs the bag of chiles and indignantly pronounces the things to be serranos, not "jalabañeros." She then shot me a look that said "thanks for wasting my time, asshole" before storming off, no doubt talking to the produce guy about "stupid white people" (like myself) who don't know what chiles (actually, she thought they were "peppers") they picked up. The checkout girl looked at her picture card and soon found the photo of a serrano. She looked back at the bag of habaneros and shook her head. She could see that they were different but, like a good little worker bee, she followed orders and rang them up as serranos. (For your reference, serranos look like this):

After she rang them up, and I saw the price, I smiled a broad smile, one that would not leave my face even after we were out of the store. My wife looked a little puzzled, assuming that I would be a little mad about how I had been treated. Why would I be so happy, you may ask? It's simple, really...Habaneros, like I alluded to earlier in this tale, retail at over 8 bucks per pound...Almost 9 whole dollars for a pound...

Serranos, on the other hand, cost less than 2 dollars per pound...

Who's "stupid" now?..

Labels: indignities, lame stories, misguided rantings, tales of triumph