I guess it’s not something every person thinks and/or worries about…ordering summer sausage at a butcher counter in Florida.

We recently returned from a fabulous family vacation to Florida and like any other vacation, the deli meats play a major role in our lunchtime happiness.

I pep-talked myself into dropping the “eh” on my way in the sliding front doors while secretly feeling completely lost in a foreign grocery store, defying the very culture that inherently struggles to please the masses and fit in wherever possible.

I stood confidently in line but when it was my turn to order, I should have known there would be trouble.

I politely smiled and asked, “Could I have some summer sausage?”

The butcher’s hand quickly cupped his ear, the international symbol for, “no need to repeat louder, say something different because I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

I knew in that moment I should have just pointed to the hunk of ham with the alphabet noodles slithering out of it but I’m a glutton for punishment.

Me: Summer sausage?

Butcher: What naw?

Me (Oh God everyone is staring): Summer sausage? (I’m tapping the glass with my pointer finger at some bologna/mac ‘n cheese loaf, hoping he’ll just slice me up anything so I can get out of this line).

He walked over to a meat-slicer-expert-colleague shaking his head. I’m a pretty good lip-reader and fairly certain he said, “Do we have smeary-smeary?”

They exchanged one of those, “let’s remember to laugh about this later” looks and on I went to look for tonic in the pop aisle, I mean….soda aisle.

There was loads of hair tonic but nothing resembling tonic water in the soda aisle. I finally found it next to some cocktail cherries and celery salt in the “Foreign shoppers” aisle and it came in very tiny single serving bottles which totally contradicted everything else in the store which was meant for mass consumption, obviously, they’ve never heard of ruby red vodka with fresh lime juice.

I left my first Florida grocery store with some mystery meat, miniature bottles of tonic and six cans of dog food. I did not purchase the dog food I just noticed them in my bags when I started to unload.

Maybe I was the mystery shopper prize winner of the day. How very Canadian of them.