I shop at a very cheap green grocer (Yutakararya). In fact, in terms of produce quality and prices, I'd say that they're the bottom of the barrel, but still good for basic daily fresh food needs. No one with two brain cells would expect to find perfectly shaped, premium fruit and vegetables there. It's not the sort of place where you find $80 (7,900 yen) melons gift-wrapped and swaddled in padding. It's the sort of place where you find lightly bruised produce dumped into open bins or wrapped in plastic bags. Despite the fact that this is a cut-rate place, it seems that every Japanese shopper who goes there (most around 120 years old or an upper-middle-aged housewife) thinks that they're going to find that one "perfect" bag of onions by pawing over each and every one in a bin full of 100. What is worse, they huck their rejects back into the bin and bruise them further. They won't get on with it and they won't move so I can grab my damned bag of onions and finish my shopping.
I won't miss these people who constantly block my access while they fuss and fiddle over a hundred or so permutations of the same vegetable or piece of fruit to find that one (non-existent) "perfect" one.
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