Things i hate about grocery shopping in India...

You never know if the store will have what you went there to buy – even if they're had it before, even if the item is available at every other branch of the chain in the city...you may or may not be able to buy the thing you went to buy

The clerk always asks (or demands) that you give them change

Store workers only know products by their exact brand name – not by what it actually is

Employees will follow you around and tell you what you should buy (if you stop and glance at the lotion, snacks, or tomato sauce – they will pick up the item, they think you should by and repeatedly tell you to buy that particular one. Sometimes I buy the opposite that they tell me, just because I can).

If you say that you don't need help or suggestions – they hover about 2 feet away from you, watching you make your decision.

Half the time I have to check my purse at the door. Apparently its too big and I might try to steal stuff...so I have to stand at the door take out all my valuable things, carry them around in the store with me...and then retrieve my bag when I leave the store. (vindictively, I've been wondering what would happen if I checked my wallet – and then when it was time for me to pay I told them I had to go get my wallet from my purse at the entrance?!?!)

The bagger puts all your stuff in a bag, and then puts a little zip tie on the top of every bag (this is to make sure that you don't steal anything in the 3 foot space between the cash register and the door – where you must present your receipt, and show the number of bags that you should be carrying out of the store).

On a good day, grocery shopping is frustrating

On a bad day it pushes me right over the edge of my ability to cope with a place so far from home...