Supermercado Paraíso

When supermarkets get these babies, Ordem e Progresso will have won

Anyone who has ever wondered what happened to all the computers from the 1980s should pay a visit to a Brazilian supermarket.

The three big supermarkets in Recife tend to nab the nonpareil of Recife’s checkout ‘talent’. Carrefour can stake a claim as having the crème de la crème. Most of the staff are on nodding terms with the Roman alphabet and can roller-skate at short notice, should the situation dictate. Occasionally confusion prevails. A bottle of wine scans at the wrong price. No problem, Ziniede skates off to check the price. After ten minutes of watching her eye blitz two metre high shelves of beer cans for the correct wine you come to her aid. Swiveling her around 180° you both stare at a massive wine wall. You point at where you got the bottle and she says thanks. Somehow, despite her being on roller-skates; you make it back to the checkout first.

Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me

Taken for posterity

Extra and Bom Preco make up the rest of the big three and employ staff that constantly look like they are trying to focus on a busy fly in an empty room. They can’t be trusted on roller-skates, even with Brazil’s lax health and safety regulations. That leaves the smaller shops to trawl through the burnt out castoffs and disgraced checkout plebs. 

Thankfully mind, many of the smaller stores rely on the calculator, which depending on the time of day and the weather can provide a speedier service. Some may scoff when they witness a man who can vote calculating that a R$2 note given in payment for a R$1 packet of gum should yield R$1 in change. They may even posit that having the conscious ability to turn on a calculator should negate the need to confirm this transaction. I am not one of these people. I applaud efficiency. And in Brazil, this is a rare thing indeed. *

There is no pain you are receding.

Societal norms dictate that the customer should never bag his own goods. This is seen as the job of the checkout monkey. Even the slaves refuse to do such degrading labour. As a consequence, things move at a dried out snails pace. Fresh fruit has been known to rot while in transit from shelf to bag. Interpol should put a tail on the owners of Aldi and Lidl in case they visit Brazil and commence summary executions.

After the best part of a year, the anger does subside. The initial satisfaction of berating the checkout staff for previously incomprehensible levels of lethargy has given way to a more supportive approach. This road to Damascus moment arrived after shouting

“For the love of God! I think my feet are turning into roots!”

Management material

And then jesting with the police officer behind me who was buying a crate of beer (and packing) that he should just shoot the checkout guy. He thought I was joking. I laughed more nervously than he did.

Ever since my modus operandi has been to shout encouragement at the staff. Research has shown that people respond in a positive manner to praise. So with this in mind a swift** transaction now gets cheered on with either a

“Congratulations! But work faster!”

Or a

“You’re doing really well today Reginaldo! Keep it up!”

 This shift in perspective has generally stood me in good stead though my resolve has been greatly weakened of late.

I’d been watching Walfrido scan through 10 beers. He scanned one ten times in a motion that was quite beautiful in its rhythm. This action was repeated on the next customer’s sizeable collection of domestic washing up liquid. Though enjoying the process, the woman in front of me (Manuella - you get to know people in queues here) had 14 pots of natural yoghurt, 8 cartons of tomato puree and at least 25 cans of coke. I suggested to Walfrido that he scan one yoghurt and then enter X 20, explaining that this would save him having to scan 20 items. Though initially skeptical he gave it a try and lone behold it worked. Ever the conscientious citizen I stood back, happy to have helped. 

Now I've got that feeling once again

Difficulties arose when the cartons of tomato puree arrived. Perhaps it was the difference in shape and colour that discombobulated him, I don’t know. He scanned in the first carton, gave me a look. I nodded. Then he proceeded to scan in each of the cartons eight times. I intervened on the fifth. A manager was called. The 1980s computer was not happy with so much abuse so stopped working. I put down my basket, offered my apologies and left.

These are the stages that the non-slave owning gringo goes through when he needs to stock the fridge.  This process takes about 7 months.

1.    Fill up your trolley with stuff and think that there must be a sensible reason why it took 17 minutes  for the three people in front of you to purchase their collective nine items.

2.    Have a free beer and maybe some biscuits thinking that it will soften the blow of the wait.

3.    Abandon your goods and walk out. Fuming.

4.    Devise a strategy. Go late at night. Marvel at your ingenuity. Then curse after discovering that just like the banks that say they are open 30 hours a day, the 24-hour supermarket has lied to you as well. Begin questioning your maths skills but get sidetracked by the dark and isolated streets and the falling (from a height) homicide rate in the city.  Resolve to take the next logical step.

5.    Join in the old timers and disabled queue and plead mental weakness or put on a spasticated voice.

6.    Get seen by an acquaintance. Abandon previously watertight strategy.

7. Start to shop locally, reasoning that higher price will be offset by the misguided belief that smaller stores & no 1980s computers will equate to smaller queues.  See an abacus at the checkout.

8.    Wonder what they hell you were thinking.

9.    Start buying fruit & veg off lads with carts on the street at random times.

10. Realise this as being a futile exercise. Return to the local store safe in the knowledge that it is the lesser of two evils.

Having recently moved across town I am eagerly awaiting going through the list above.


I have become comfortably numb.

* Pernambuco Gypsy is in no position to confirm or deny whether calculators are permanently left on.

** In the loosest possible sense of the word.