I decided to liven up my shopping experience by trying to use a Toblerone as the 'Next Customer' bar. This needed a certain amount of planning, as some supermarkets sell Toblerones but have separators with a square cross-section, and some have triangular separators but only flat bars of chocolate.
The supermarket chain Rewe have both triangular-shaped separators and triangular-boxed chocolate with nougat, honey and almonds. They were therefore rewarded with my custom. I actually bought more than I needed to, as I attempted to give body to my ruse. I thus approached the checkout with a full basket of shopping and one Toblerone.
While discussing my plans with a friend last week, I realised that in all my time in Germany I have been pronouncing the name Toblerone wrong. I have been using the english tow-bler-own, whereas the correct pronunciation is somewhere between towbler-owner and tobbler-owner. I also never knew there was a bear hidden in the picture of the Matterhorn. Actually, just sod off and read the wikipedia page.
Anyway, I approached the checkout and tried to make it look like I had two lots of shopping. I decided to go for two mixed-bags of shopping with apples in front, bananas behind, cereal in front, milk behind. In the middle was a Toblerone, it's axis pointing across the band, but with a 10 degree tilt, as though it had been slightly thoughtlessly cast down. A respectful 15cm of empty band each side of the Toblerone made it clear that this was no standard grocery item.
An old lady approached the checkout, her arms struggling to clutch her groceries. In any other circumstances I would have shifted my things together to relieve her straining, but I was on a mission. I put the real customer separator behind my second lot of goods and ignored her visual pleas. She'd just have to hold on.
And then it didn't happen. The checkout lady just scanned everything through, including the Toblerone. She didn't even pause, or look twice, or smile.
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