Monday, July 29, 2013

A Euro for your Cart

   There are a few things that seem a bit behind the times here in the south of France. It is part of the appeal to western Europe: part of why we came here. Yet, some ideas are so clever I can only hope other modern countries adopt these ways. For instance-there are no plastic bags offered at the grocery store. You either bring your own, or you buy new ones. No freebies here...at all.
   And, grocery carts are contained in those corrals, like in the States, but in order to use one, you have to insert a Euro to release a leash that keeps the carts together. It is a brilliant idea that eliminates the need for employees gathering carts from all ends of a parking lot, cleaning up after lazy shoppers who are incapable of returning carts to a specific place that may be more than 10 feet from their car door. Once you return the cart and plug the chain back in, you get your Euro back. I love it. For now, my kids find this to be a fascinating chore, and love to retrieve a cart for me when we go to the store. Returning the cart is even better as they think they get to keep the coin. With the exchange rate as it is, this is a no go. I need every penny I can get.
   Life in the south of France is extremely expensive. the only thing that is not excruciatingly expensive is bread....and wine. If we had our own garden, we would be alot better of, but as it is almost August, my time with the growing season is getting quite limited. I did scatter a pack of lettuce seeds and a few other things, so perhaps my fall grocery bills will lighten with the luck of my not-so-green thumb. My fingers are crossed.






1 comment:

UnclePhool said...

Many European museums do this with coat lockers as well. I like that the rear wheels on many French shopping carts swivel as well as the front ones. Easier to maneuver and tend to roll much better than their American counterparts.