Rat At The Supermarket

[chris]

Eating in public is something I NEVER saw here twenty years ago. Now they are walking around with carry out coffee the way they do in the US. And of course everyone is at least ten-twenty kilos fatter or more.

 

[gracielle]

How about eating "a full meal" while riding on public transportation?

Not so long ago it wasn't customary to see passengers eating anything on buses/subways in CABA and on the suburban train lines. Then I began observing young persons from all walks of life consuming apples, bananas, and cereal bars to drinking from take-out coffee to soda cans.

This tendency has escalated to homemade foods (such as salads/sandwiches/desserts) in tupperware-like containers or warm dishes in see-through flimsy trays most likely purchased from Chinese take-out places. They whip out a utensil but I have yet to observe any of them with a paper napkin in hand!

I am not partial to allowing passengers to eat anything while on public transportation. But it seems to be a sign of the changing times.

 

[chris]

Gracielle, you are absolutely right. I see this phenomenon not only here but in the US and the UK as well. There seems to be a breakdown in the public's perception of what is appropriate behavior at home and in public. Distinctions are blurred to the point that people do just about anything in public. When I came here in the early 1990s just about everyone ate meals at a normal hour in the traditional way: sitting at a table. I was impressed at how families enjoyed dinner together, much as it was in the US in the 50s and 60s. Now I see this breaking down. The prevalence of fast and junk food has led to widespread obesity and I suspect growing health problems.

 

[Gringoboy]

Probably because everyone thinks they're in a hurry nowadays.

 

[on the brink]

It always amazes me to see people so much concerned with being soaked in fragrance can live in dirty potholes, eat expired and day-old food (and pretend it's good) and sit on the train floor. I once commented on a vintage picture on FB showing a public train in the '20 and added "nobody sat on the floor" and I had people asking "What is wrong with sitting on the train floor?!".

Scene #1 from Saturday. I was on the train from San Isidro to Belgrano. A couple of girls in their 20s came on, with a cup of coffee to go and a bag of facturas. They were middle-class girls, very white. The train starts and they sat on the floor (one of them had a miniskirt, effectively sitting in her underwear on the train floor), laid the bag of facturas open on the train floor and had breakfast. They touched the train floor with their hands to rest / adjust their position and one second after with the same hand they took a factura and ate it. I was in horror and wanted to offer them my seat, but they wouldn't have understood WHY, so I just stared.

Scene #2 from today. Same train and same route. A couple of male friends come in. One is holding a peeled banana in one hand. He was passing the banana from one hand to the other AFTER TOUCHING the poles inside of the train. Again, I was disgusted to see how he was eating this banana after touching a train. EWWWWW!

Scene#3 - I went out with an Argentine friend and her 3-years old. We were at Peru Beach. She sat on the floor while we were talking. I stood on foot for a good minute before realizing she sat to stay and not to rest a few secs. :huh:

Seriously, this is disgusting! The other day I went into a bakery to buy some facturas and there were BEES on them. The lady didn't seem to bother, she simply waved themaway.
A couple of weeks ago I went to shop for veggies at the Bolivian place nearby, everything under the summer sun, swarms of bees flying all over (inside and outside the shop). I can home and started cooking, I started to feel my neck tickle and I thought it was a lock of hair... NO, it was a bee, which was packed together with my plums! Mamma mia!


I have had store owners asking me for baby cats to keep trapped in their store so that they can mouse-hunt. (They know I rescue cats). What's wrong with you people?! Do you think having rats in a vegetable store is a healthy thing?!

I rather like bees, but having rats among the vegetables is disgusting.

Still, absolutely clean, sterile environments are not without problems.

There was a big polio outbreak in Argentina many years ago, when my father was a doctor working both in a State-run hospital and in a posh private clinic. He noticed that there were far more polio cases among middle class children coming to the clinic than they were among the slum kids he saw in the hospital. Apparently, early exposure to germs and pets gave slum children immunities that children growing in a sanitized environment did not have.

There is a wonderful, very old Jacques Tati movie, Mon Oncle, that touches on this subject.

 

[BlueArrow]

Another BA rat story, from January 2015 2016. I had brought my wife and 2 year old down with me and we went to the Palermo Zoo. We came in at the north end, and just inside the entrance there is a small court-yard/park type area with benches around it. It had been raining and the court-yard was flooded with about 2" of water. Walking past it I immediately smelled a very strong "rotting dead animal smell" and saw there was a very large dead rat in the middle of water, buzzing with flies. Nonetheless, people were seated around all the benches and kids were even splashing in the muddy water, despite the obvious, smelly dead rat. Nearby were maintenance/janitorial people milling around doing nothing! We gave each other shocked looks and made a B-line for the other end of the zoo, passing by the lonely elephant and badly emaciated white tiger on our way through.

Terrible zoo! And what were those people thinking exposing their kids to dead-rat-filled warm standing puddles?! The polio comment above reminded me of the whole episode, ugh.

 

[rickulivi]

Rats!

Go to Netflix and watch "Rats". It's about New York. You think Buenos Aires has a problem with rats? There are more of these in New York than people in the city. The documentary in incredible. If you see it, I don't think you'll ever visit New York again!

In my yard in our house in California, we have mice. But we also have two garden snakes that catch most of them. Get a snake and you will get rid of your rats!

 

[Girino]

How about eating "a full meal" while riding on public transportation?

Not so long ago it wasn't customary to see passengers eating anything on buses/subways in CABA and on the suburban train lines. Then I began observing young persons from all walks of life consuming apples, bananas, and cereal bars to drinking from take-out coffee to soda cans.

I am still appalled at people buying food from stands below the ground. When I ride the subway I always get a grey dirt in my nose, so I could only imagine what is on medialunas that sat there for hours...

 

[BlueArrow]

Rats!

Go to Netflix and watch "Rats". It's about New York. You think Buenos Aires has a problem with rats? There are more of these in New York than people in the city. The documentary in incredible. If you see it, I don't think you'll ever visit New York again!

In my yard in our house in California, we have mice. But we also have two garden snakes that catch most of them. Get a snake and you will get rid of your rats!

Biggest rat I've ever seen in my life was in NYC, it was the size of your average rabbit. HUGE.

I've seen rats in Detroit as well, both in the city and the surrounding burbs, though smaller. Their population there seems to peak and valley based on weather and/or municipal issues related to trash collection.

Rats: They're everywhere. I'd just prefer not to see them in my supermarket.