On a shopping spree!!!!

The moment I saw my cell beeping, it struck me it was Friday and it was a friend calling me along for shopping…lets call her S. S was getting married in a few months time and yours truly being her best friend was assigned the task of accompany her for weekly trousseau shopping trips. So dutifully every week we would trudge along the malls looking for the most unique things for her. My friend calls me a fashion fossil… she thinks my fashion sense dates back to the time of the oldest dinosaurs; still she takes me along … maybe it is her sly way of giving me a lesson or two. It is said that opposites attract and so true it is in our case. I don’t take more than 10 minutes to shop for anything, I buy whatever I like first in the shop I go to J But that’s not the case with S., S scans every item in 10 shops and then either buys nothing at all or finds the eleventh shop.

Let me take you one of our small shopping excursions and hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did

We enter a large accessories shop.

S: Show me a XY type of accessory.
Salesgirl: M’am, please have a look at this kind.
S: No I want the XY type.
Salesgirl: Yeh latest fashion hai ..
After 1 hour of relentless searching……
S: Nahi kuch pasand nahi aaya … (by this time we have looked at least 100 types)
Finally S likes a particular design, and I am asked to try it on…
S looks at me the way a scientist looks at a specimen who is not very pleased with the final results of an experiment. My heart sinks. This means we need to walk for another 5 kms which also means another new pair of footwear for me. I try to convince her that it looks good but she gives me a look as though I had committed blasphemy, and tells me that the look was out of fashion 10 years ago … (all for giving an opinion… and again I am reminded of my fossil status).

However all this extra scrutiny has it reverse effects too. Once while making me try out a particular item, the piece snapped. My friend and I hastily removed it, kept it back on the shelf and scooted out of the shop. We didn’t stop until we reached 2 kms away from the shop (I am sure we would have won India a medal or two at the Olympics.. whatay waste of hidden talent!!!). For a few weeks we judiciously avoided that street and if we saw anyone giving us more than a second glance, we would double check to make sure it wasn’t the sales boy from that shop J

The major gain from all these excursions was that, I lost all the excess flab I gained without spending a dime at the gym, walking is a good exercise. My wardrobe is overflowing too, cause whenever we went shopping for my friend, I always ended up buying more stuff than she did (I hate to disappoint the sales people you see!!!)

There is an incident without which I cannot end this post.
It was the season of sales, another friend of mine, a guy, lets call him X wanted to check one out. Yours truly was pulled along too. The shop had a good offer on trousers and X wanted to buy a few too.
X to Sales boy: I need trousers of size 44.
Sales boy: Sir aapka size 34 hoga,
X: Utna size toh mera 10th standard me tha ..
Me: Even I think it must be 34.
X: The waist sizes are different for men section. (Glares at me for the effect)
Me: ok… (While the whole scene was unfolding, I see a huge man ask for waist size 36)
X: Please give me size 44, else I’ll talk to your manager.
Sales boy (exasperated): Ok sir, as you wish.

Now my friend stubborn goes in with size 44 trousers of 3 shades to the changing room. In 2 minutes he comes out, a sheepish grin spread across his face, “It’s too loose”, he says, “I think I got confused between the shirt size and trouser waist”.
The sales guy just kept grinning with an “I told you so look” on his face. On my part, I was almost rolling on the floor laughing… (Fossils do know waist sizes at least!!)

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping!!!

This post got published as a guest post here too!!