Undeserving of Immigrants

So last Sunday I walk into the Pakistani-run convenience store in my neighborhood. This place has everything from gourmet, hand-cut squid ink fetuccine to Thai peanut sauce. There’s something from nearly every culture in the world, and it’s more than awesome in a pinch, when every goddamn thing in Spain is closed on Sunday except churches — and what good do they do?

I go to the cash register to pay for some organic cashews and a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil and see an old Catalan man grumbling over the bottles of wine. He turns to the young Pakistani cashier and spits, “All your wine is of unknown brands! You have nothing good here!”

The cashier doesn’t respond in what I believe to be the logical way: advise Grandpa to go home, go to bed, and when he wakes up, go shop for his preferred wine when the “regular” stores open some 17 hours from now. Perhaps reminding the gentleman that, if it weren’t for stores like this, he’d be drinking his own urine on Sundays.

Instead, he politely tries to tell him that, in fact, they do offer “known” brands, such as Marques de Cáceres, Osbourne — the typical fare you’d expect in a convenience store. Duh.

I paid and walked out, disgusted. Only ten years ago, this guy’s wrinkly, ungrateful ass was starving to death on Sundays. Not till the Chinese and Pakistanis and South Americans moved here did such luxuries exist: convenience stores, in every neighborhood, that stayed open Sundays on holidays. What a concept!

And all he could do was complain that their wine selection wasn’t equal to that of El Corte Inglés.

Dammit, some people just don’t deserve to have immigrants in their country.