Lost in (No) Space

As an American living abroad, I am often asked what I miss most about home.  Having been here for several months, I think I've got a pretty solid top five:

1.  My People.  You know who you are.

2.  Being understood when I speak (and understanding others)

3.  Space

4.  Bourbon

5.  Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace

I think numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 are pretty self explanatory, but number three might need a little context.  Let me pose a question to you: when you go through a supermarket, how wide are the aisles?  The answer is about as wide as my kitchen, probably a little wider.  Which is something I completely took for granted back in my Midwestern days.  Alas, no more:  here, the aisles are about as wide as my recycling bin.  And while I used to smirk at the Americans who earned us our stereotype (hummer drivers, Super Walmart patrons and super-sized fast food meal eaters), I've come to accept that I'm an American (an extremely clumsy one, at that), and I need my space.

This is another example of culture shock where I'm not sure if the root cause is that I'm in a different country or if this is just how things are in more urban settings.  Either way, I dislike it.  For as much as I enjoy the freedom of not having a car, I dislike being so packed onto a metro at rush hour that my face is forcibly smooshed into the (I strongly suspect unwashed) armpit of the tall man next to me.  And I severely dislike getting off said crowded train only to have to go into a supermarket where I have to throw elbows just to get through the dairy aisle.  

My eyes now glaze over with nostalgia as I think back on the time when I could take a few moments to read the labels on the different kinds of olive oil without being smacked in the back by the handbag of a  cranky old lady or having my toes run over by a stroller.  Grocery shopping used to be my favorite household duty, a sort of zen field trip through an alternate universe filled with gourmet cheeses and beers from microbrews I hadn't tried.  Now I'm like a Navy Seal on a recon mission:  get in, get out, don't ask questions.  The problem is that I seem to be the only one with this mentality.  No one else seems to mind being whacked with handbags or run over by strollers (or maybe they're just more adept at avoiding that fate in the first place).  I once witnessed a woman who, dissatisfied with the arrangement of the items in her basket, stopped in the middle of a crowded aisle, set said basket down, and proceeded to begin rearranging things more to her liking.  A line of people waiting to get around her built up on either side of her.  She appeared completely unfazed.  And, as my blood started boiling hard enough to cook a chicken in, I realized that nobody else seemed fazed either.  As AH would later explain to me, they accepted that while, yes, this woman was being an asshole, at some point they will have their turn to be an asshole.  And they won't feel a shred of guilt when a line of people who JUST WANT THEIR FREAKIN' CHOCOLATE build up behind them.

And so today, my head smelling of ripe armpit,  I made my way through the Monoprix to gather dinner supplies.  Just as I begin to see the light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel (aka the cash register), the cashier at the next register over addresses me:

Cashier:  FrenchyFrenchFrench.

Me:  Lentemente, sil vous plait?

Cashier:  FrenchyFrench.

Me: Je ne comprends pas...

Cashier:  Move.  You take up too much space.