Losing my virginity.......at Smart Supermarket

Yep that's it!! I have known about it for ages, heard people mention it and even saw adverts on the paper. However, I never really had to go, until today.

This Smart Supermarket is I think one of the largest on the island, though a new larger one to be named 'Pavi' is about to open later this year. I have already been to large supermarkets, or better hypermarkets as they are better known. Just to mention, I have been to l'Auchan, close to Bari and to the Metro Centre in the UK. We've go nothing of the sort here in Malta, just a couple of huge supermarkets which are mainly food selling. Smart is something like a Tesco thing. Well actually, the outlet we went to has expanded further and includes household goods, some appliances plus other mini-shops or franchises.

The only reason to go there was to buy some specialised stuff since tonight we are going to eat Indian food. At Smart, you find almost anything. It was quite a thing going there, actually we could not find most of the things, a typical mishap often found within our culture. Let me explain:

The meat, fish and bread counters are easy to identify using particularly 3 senses: smell, feel and eyes. Meat and fish counters are always surrounded by cooler air, especially if open-chest freezers are nearby. On the other hand, break counters are usually identified through the smell of freshly baked loaves of break. Also, these counters tend to have quite some people gathered, queueing for their turn. So that's is eapy peasy. But when you need to look for spices....oooo... you get the chills.

Back to the Maltese culture thingy. We Maltese suffer from one of the worst maladies - we lack vision and proper planning skills. Bad planning is seen almost anywhere were there has been human intervention. It is a real pity.

Return to 29th April 2006. Planning, or the lack of it symptoms are evident. There is hardly any signage to what one can find on the shelves. Of course, you do not expect every single item to be identified, but at least signs showing food preseves, cooking oils and so on should be put up. And you can neither rely on experience. While there, I hear more than one person grumbling that the management seems to be moving things around and thus object A found at Shelf A , Row A is moved to Shelf F, Row F. Add to this the lack to signing... and then you ask directions to some shelf-filler who ends up sending to the 'old' location.

But anyway, I was quite amazed and impressed with the large number of people and vast selection of goods.

As for my virginity...well you would have understood by now that virginity may have other meanings, or can be used as a metaphor. Since it was my first time, I can say that it was rather pleasureable, however some proper planning and organisation would have made the experience less of marathon.