Posted by Kanga.
So, I was standing in line in the small neighborhood grocery behind a woman who was clearly high maintenance in her tight dress, high heels, raven black hair and eyebrows plucked to non-existence. First, there was a problem with the barcode on a couple of small juice bottles, so the clerk typed in the code manually. The woman immediately reached over and grabbed the second bottle before he could enter that one and tossed aside as no longer wanted. Then came the veggies…I have to explain here that the procedure with fresh veggies is that after you choose what you want you take them in plastic bags to a weighing station in the veggie section to have them weighed, sealed and labeled. –Well, she had three bags of veggies, only the first of which had a price label on it. When it became apparent that the second bag of veggies had no label, she grabbed it from the clerk, shoved it at the security guard who happened to be walking past the check stand and indicated that he should get it weighed and labeled. After he left, with veggie bag in hand to do just that, the third bag was discovered to be label-less also. She, herself, grabbed the bag from the clerk and off she went to the veggie section to get it weighed. The clerk then looked at me and said, “Life is beautiful. [pause] Life is still beautiful.” The woman then returned with only the third bag of veggies in hand , weighed and labeled, followed shortly by the security guard with the second bag, also weighed and labeled. Her transaction continued without further ado.
Today, I learned a little something about owls. Westerners consider owls to be symbolic of wisdom. “Wise ol’ owl or wise as an owl.” However, if a Pakistani calls you “a son of an owl” this is actually an insult that equates to “you idiot.” In the Middle East, owls are considered stupid, apparently because they look stupid. So, now I’m going to have to investigate other animals and insults.
Living the Travel Channel 