"Dave Smith" > wrote in message
...

> I lived beside a small Italian grocer store for a year when I was first
> married. One day I went in to get some lasagne noodles, parmesan, cottage
> cheese, tomato sauce, mozzarella. When I got the the checkout the lady
> asked
> if my wife was making Lasagne. I told her I was. She told me I had all the
> wrong stuff. She went around the store with me, put everything back, got
> DeCecco pasta, a different kind of tomato sauce, had the butcher grate
> some
> fresh mozzarella and Parmesan and she told me to use the recipe on the
> box.
>
> We had a Bouvier des Flandres at the time and she used to spend a lot of
> time in the back yard. At 9 months she already weighed well over 100 lb.
> I
> went next door to do my grocery shopping and after I got the meats I asked
> the butch if he had any dog bones. He grabbed huge thigh bone and as he
> stood in front of the band saw, and to figure what size pieces to cut, he
> asked what kind of dog it was. I told him it was the dog next door. He
> turned off the saw, wrapped up the bone and handed it to me.
>
> I still love shopping in the local Italian grocery stores.

Bet you never had my experience in them, though. When I was poor and
pregnant and living in Greenwich Village I shopped at a Bleeker Street
greengrocer, who used to pat my bulge and then give me a piece of fresh
fruit for the "bambino". He was down the street from the "pork store" where
they would give me leftover ham bones to make soup. I can only hope their
children are now running the same stores and being as user-friendly!

Felice