My First Big Mistake

The gates at the grocery store.

Well, I did it... I made my first big mistake... I set the alarm off at the grocery store. That's what I get for going to a new store... So here it is, my embarrassing yet funny mistake.

Yesterday, I left our flat in search of a small ball that I needed for an interview (Random - I'm in the process of interviewing for an online job teaching English to kids in China). I knew the main grocery store that I've been to would not have a ball, so I decided to check the discount grocery store close by that has some random goodies. Now for a quick background, when you enter the grocery stores here you go through a little gate that opens automatically and closes behind you (see picture above), fairly straight forward right? But what happens when you want to leave without buying anything? I still don't know... Anyway, I walked through the gate, looked around the store, didn't see any balls so I decided to leave. It was close to 5:30pm so grocery store rush hour, meaning the lines were long and the store was full of people. I looked at the lines and decided there wasn't room to sneak through the check out counters (plus the German word for excuse me "entschuldigung" is super long and a little complicated, so I'm not too confident using it yet). So, my next plan was to walk back out the way I came through the little entrance gate. It was going to be perfect! There was a lady coming in right as I wanted to go out so I didn't have to worry about the gates not opening and looking ridiculous. I took a leap of faith and walked out the gate and guess what... the alarm started beeping... and EVERYONE looked at me... I conjured up my most "American" accent and asked "Am I not allowed to go through here?" Looking as innocent as possible and pointing to the gate... The lady behind the check out counter continued to look at me, said something in German and waived her hands, which I took to mean, "please just leave" which I did, gladly and quickly. Needless to say it will be a LONG time before I go back to that store and if/when I do, I will make sure to buy something so I can leave "the right" way.