Well, due to abject poverty and the news that we need to come up with 58,000 danish crowns for my residency, my husband and I cancelled Christmas.
However, no one else did. I was all for telling people we were really canceling Christmas and not buying anyone anything, but that's an apparent "no-can-do" around here, which means we still have to buy Christmas presents. My husband's brother, bless him, who we always split the cost of presents with 2/3 to his 1/3, told us to never mind buying him something and that we can do 50/50 and we should try to go on the low end of the budget.
So by "canceling Christmas" all we've really accomplished is that we are not traveling this year and my husband is going to work Christmas Eve in the taxi.
I'm pretty sure I can make a Christmas out of that. I can make a festive meal. I could probably even decorate a bit. I need to find myself a Christmas tree....
Anyway, every year my husband's grandmothers ask for the same thing: stationary. This is because they are convinced that this is a cheap and easy gift to get. The reason they keep asking for it each year - it is not easy to get. Stationary is no longer sold in Denmark.
Okay, I exaggerate, but only slightly. The only place I've ever found stationary was in the kiosk in Ebeltoft. Which means a late night drive out to Ebeltoft tonight or tomorrow night to buy it.
Meanwhile, I have wandered all over Arhus, into book stores, hobby stores (oh wondrous hobby stores!), and stationary stores. And by "stationary stores" I mean the stores that sell fancy pens, fancy paper, photo albums, scrap books, organizers, cards... but no actual stationary.
I mean, in America we have stores dedicated to the stuff! Of course, if I could think about these things enough in advance, I could have ordered on-line. This is what actually bothers me, every year when Christmas suddenly looms on the horizon - I *know* what the Grandmas want and I forget to do something about it! Every year!!
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Supermarket Nexus of Evil
Where I grew up, supermarkets are separated by shopping centers. Each supermarket had it's own shopping center (this would be the supermarket axis of evil, a separate post) which would act as a buffer between supermarkets. The supermarkets would then compete with each other, which is what supermarkets do in a capitalist market economy regulated by labor laws.
Not so in Denmark.
In Denmark, where the labor laws are so strict that they actually keep the worker from actually having to perform any work, supermarkets tend to congregate in what can only be defined as a Supermarket Nexus of Evil.
Within a two block radius I have the following supermarkets: SuperBest, SuperBrusen, Aldi, and Netto. You may think that I am incredibly lucky to live so close to so many supermarkets, but you forget, this is the nexus of evil not amazingly convenient. They've all decided to band together (hence "nexus") and, instead of competing with one another, not lift a finger to differentiate themselves other than the price of the food inside. Everyone knows that Netto and Aldi are the cheapest, followed by SuperBest and then SuperBrusen. They all have the same type of food. You pick your supermarket based on the degree of snobbishness or elitism that you can afford.
(The AG shops at Netto, much to the DB's horror, because we po'. As soon as the DB will stop hyperventilating over the loss of social standing we've taken through my choice of supermarket, he'll realize how much money we are saving. And I may be able to afford to keep buying the whole-bean-organic-free-trade coffee that he loves so much. Or not, because we po'.)
So how could this nexus of supermarkets be *evil*? Because the entire nexus shuts its doors at 5pm on Saturday and does not open up again until Monday. There's no point in being open on Sunday, it's not like you're competing with the other supermarkets in the nexus! This would not be a problem if Denmark were the type of place where you can buy a weeks worth of food in one go. But Denmark is not that kind of place, despite my best efforts, and continues to be a place where you buy small amounts of food frequently.
And 5 pm on Saturday is just too damn early for me to know what we're going to eat on Sunday. Especially since it seems the DB is going to go through a liter of yogurt every two days.
What is the AG to do? Walk her damn self to the next damn nexus is what. Because there is another nexus 5 blocks away, one that is open on Sunday. All those supermarkets are open on Sunday. One of them is even open really really late into the night. There is no discernible reason why this nexus is AG friendly and the local one is not.
And if it weren't so damn far away I'd go there every day and show my support through economic means. Five blocks is damn far when you are carrying everything in a backpack and two large shopping bags. I'd like to see you carry all your groceries home.
I'm just glad that we don't live in the bedroom community of Feldballe, where the single supermarket is open M-F 9-5 and on Sat. from 7am to 11am. Honestly, when do people go shopping?
Oh, wait, that's right, no one in Denmark actually works M-F 9-5...
Silly me.
Not so in Denmark.
In Denmark, where the labor laws are so strict that they actually keep the worker from actually having to perform any work, supermarkets tend to congregate in what can only be defined as a Supermarket Nexus of Evil.
Within a two block radius I have the following supermarkets: SuperBest, SuperBrusen, Aldi, and Netto. You may think that I am incredibly lucky to live so close to so many supermarkets, but you forget, this is the nexus of evil not amazingly convenient. They've all decided to band together (hence "nexus") and, instead of competing with one another, not lift a finger to differentiate themselves other than the price of the food inside. Everyone knows that Netto and Aldi are the cheapest, followed by SuperBest and then SuperBrusen. They all have the same type of food. You pick your supermarket based on the degree of snobbishness or elitism that you can afford.
(The AG shops at Netto, much to the DB's horror, because we po'. As soon as the DB will stop hyperventilating over the loss of social standing we've taken through my choice of supermarket, he'll realize how much money we are saving. And I may be able to afford to keep buying the whole-bean-organic-free-trade coffee that he loves so much. Or not, because we po'.)
So how could this nexus of supermarkets be *evil*? Because the entire nexus shuts its doors at 5pm on Saturday and does not open up again until Monday. There's no point in being open on Sunday, it's not like you're competing with the other supermarkets in the nexus! This would not be a problem if Denmark were the type of place where you can buy a weeks worth of food in one go. But Denmark is not that kind of place, despite my best efforts, and continues to be a place where you buy small amounts of food frequently.
And 5 pm on Saturday is just too damn early for me to know what we're going to eat on Sunday. Especially since it seems the DB is going to go through a liter of yogurt every two days.
What is the AG to do? Walk her damn self to the next damn nexus is what. Because there is another nexus 5 blocks away, one that is open on Sunday. All those supermarkets are open on Sunday. One of them is even open really really late into the night. There is no discernible reason why this nexus is AG friendly and the local one is not.
And if it weren't so damn far away I'd go there every day and show my support through economic means. Five blocks is damn far when you are carrying everything in a backpack and two large shopping bags. I'd like to see you carry all your groceries home.
I'm just glad that we don't live in the bedroom community of Feldballe, where the single supermarket is open M-F 9-5 and on Sat. from 7am to 11am. Honestly, when do people go shopping?
Oh, wait, that's right, no one in Denmark actually works M-F 9-5...
Silly me.
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