Que Vergonha! (How Embarrassing!)

I have been in a blogging funk. March has been slow - lots of work, not much fun to share. I promised myself that my next post would include a picture (which it does, it just happens to be from google) Since nothing of great importance has been happening, I thought I would share with you one of my embarrassing moments from living in Brazil, since I have plenty of them. This one, however, I had forgotten until last night.

You know those dividers that you set on the belt at the store to divide your groceries from the person behind you so you don't end up paying for their double-stuffed Oreo's? The ones that sometimes look like this:

I had never thought much of them, though I used them often. When I arrived in Brazil I spoke NO Portuguese, and it was slow coming! Each P-Day my companion and I would go grocery shopping. She would load all of her groceries onto the belt, at which point I would put the divider down, then load all of my groceries on the belt. When the checker got to the divider he/she would always shoot me a nasty look, put the divider back, and then check out my groceries. Week after week the checkers would give me funny looks. I had NO idea what was going on.

Finally, after many weeks, I was starting to become more comfortable with Portuguese. It was at this point that I noticed something interesting written across the divider. It said (loosely translated): Lane Closed. Please try next lane. I was so embarrassed! They weren't grocery dividers, they were used when the line was closed!

Moral of the Story: When in Brazil, do not try and use the grocery dividers. They do not use them the same way we do, and will earn you some really interesting looks :)