This comes from a lifetime of experience of going to the market with Ma. I would have never stumbled upon this topic as a writeable material but a chance e mail from a certain friend gave me the idea to pen it. I only used to grumble when Ma would drag me all the way to the market any time there was any requirement of amusement but when this particular friend of mine described a certain Sunday that she had entirely spent within the confines of a shopping mall as pure heaven, I decided to take up the cudgels. So here goes.
If that thing about women coming from Venus holds any water, then I am willing to bet my last breath that they have the biggest shopping mall that man can ever imagine somewhere underneath that sulphuric acid atmosphere of the planet. You don’t believe me? Talk to any woman about the experience of shopping and I dare you to come back and tell me that deriving joy from this seemingly trifle activity is not ingrained in their genes. It’s almost like the operating system that is installed in the computer at the time of its assembly. It is almost the single most important BIOS instruction that was embedded into the ROM chip that goes into a female mind – “Thou shalt exult at the sight of a shop”
What beats me is the joy that a female can derive by ruminating in front of a shop just looking at the thing of desire and picturing herself in a position of using the thing. Well if it were me, I would either get in, buy it and demonstrate physically the elation of owning that certain piece in question or decide that my pocket had not yet achieved maturity to handle the responsibility of owning that and move on. Yes I would dream about owning it but that would be in the confines of my own room while my eyes would be undergoing R.E.M. I have no joy in making shopping a vocation. I cannot for the love of me understand how can someone spend 8 hours inside a mall and call it a fruitful exercise at the end of the day? I mean I know what I want to get. I know where to get it. In this day and age of the internet, I can even get onto the net and find out how much this darned thing costs. Hell if I were a bit more enterprising and a little more courageous to trust the Paypal system of electronic money exchange, I would have happily renounced this absolutely jocular task of going to the market.
Still not satisfied? Well in that case, riddle me this – how long does it take for you as a male to buy a pair of trousers and a shirt once inside the store? My dear how much choice do you have? It is the same old pair of jeans and your shirt can just not get any more imaginative than the chromatic deviations that you can take your pick from. Be my guest but my guess (and I daresay it is quite a good one) is that you would be in and out of the activity in a matter of minutes. Let me now educate you about the various stages that are involved when a female (for example my own Ma) decides to undertake the monumental task of buying a piece of clothing.
Stage 1: Recon – This is the most important part of the entire process and serves as the prep stage for all future courses of action. If you are the unfortunate soul acting as the sidekick in this expedition, then prey you would do well to pay attention at this point of time. This is the stage when the scene is thoroughly evaluated for potential. Many a times further interactions will be nipped in the bud because of the failure of the ambience to enthrall the audience even when the thing required is right under their noses and at others just because the air was just right, a totally new quest will be launched entirely on the spur of the moment. It is the latter that has been so famously documented as “Impulse Buying”. Be whatever the case, this stage is the one that has the potential to snowball into a major time pass. So if you are in the mood of catching the all important last ball of the innings on the TV back home, you had better roll up your sleeves and show some enterprising attitude to convince the centre of discussion of this piece that she would do well to stick to her product and this place. Pay attention to the seemingly trifle words – “Her” and “This” in the last line. While the former will cause your pocket to thank you, the latter will be instrumental in getting you back home in time for what we discussed above
Stage 2: Umm.. – This part of the passage is brought to you courtesy of the keen observational tendencies of yours truly. Umm.. indicates that choices are being evaluated. The number of umm..(s) is a very important nuance in the subtle art of managing shopping (some might also call it a science). It indicates the number of variables that are going to be involved in the final solution of the fragile partial differential equation called “Purchase”. And any mathematician worth his salt would tell you that the more the umm..(s), the more are the chances of your suffering a nervous break down right in the middle of the shop.
Stage 3: Hmm.. - Let us now concentrate on Hmm.. If you thought that umm.. management was all that you had to worry about, meet his big brother, the esteemed Hmm.. Hmm.. indicates that while a decision has been reached, it is still nebulous and it is now that the ball is in your court. Take it from me when I tell you that now you will decide whether you want to axe this thing or axe your own foot! She will turn to you now and want your opinion on her buy. Attention my dear friend. If your response is too quick, she will know that you just want to get it out of the way and so your powers will be vetoed and the entire unending loop of evaluate, frustrate storekeeper, evaluate again, frustrate storekeeper more will start again. If you on the other hand take too much time to come out with the response, you have lost the game once again. So you must have a very measured timed response which should be something on the lines of “excellent choice. Nothing could be better. Pack it”
Stage 4: Hasty retreat – Don’t rest on your laurels until you have truly finished the race or in other words don’t take the shopping expedition for over until it actually is. Make sure that the exit is absolutely un-enthralling and nothing remotely interesting dots the sides of the path of retreat. This will require careful consideration and scan when you enter the place to find the best escape route and if I were a little bit overly cautious I would actually recommend visiting the area a day in advance to plan this part better but let’s be rational beings here. With a little practice I am sure you will do well in this part.
So was this entire thing to mock the living daylights out of the entire female species? Well I did start out with the intention of doing so but I just realized that the entire process of shopping I just described was for buying a pair of trousers for …… me. To be absolutely honest I have not had the courage to buy a single piece of clothing or shoes or ok anything without my Mom accosting me to the shop and making me do the needful. Come to think of it I would have been an absolute pig had this person not taken it upon herself to make a decent human being out of me. Yes she can be a pain when she is in her elements inside the confines of a shop. Irrespective of the item she is buying, she wants the buy in of the entire entourage that is accompanying her on this visit. But I am kind of pressed to realize that it is not always that she undertakes these trips for her personal benefit. In fact that happens to be quite the minority. At most times, I do happen to be the beneficiary of these expeditions. So am I still going to grumble over this entire episode? You bet I am but I am going to love her all the same for it.
If that thing about women coming from Venus holds any water, then I am willing to bet my last breath that they have the biggest shopping mall that man can ever imagine somewhere underneath that sulphuric acid atmosphere of the planet. You don’t believe me? Talk to any woman about the experience of shopping and I dare you to come back and tell me that deriving joy from this seemingly trifle activity is not ingrained in their genes. It’s almost like the operating system that is installed in the computer at the time of its assembly. It is almost the single most important BIOS instruction that was embedded into the ROM chip that goes into a female mind – “Thou shalt exult at the sight of a shop”
What beats me is the joy that a female can derive by ruminating in front of a shop just looking at the thing of desire and picturing herself in a position of using the thing. Well if it were me, I would either get in, buy it and demonstrate physically the elation of owning that certain piece in question or decide that my pocket had not yet achieved maturity to handle the responsibility of owning that and move on. Yes I would dream about owning it but that would be in the confines of my own room while my eyes would be undergoing R.E.M. I have no joy in making shopping a vocation. I cannot for the love of me understand how can someone spend 8 hours inside a mall and call it a fruitful exercise at the end of the day? I mean I know what I want to get. I know where to get it. In this day and age of the internet, I can even get onto the net and find out how much this darned thing costs. Hell if I were a bit more enterprising and a little more courageous to trust the Paypal system of electronic money exchange, I would have happily renounced this absolutely jocular task of going to the market.
Still not satisfied? Well in that case, riddle me this – how long does it take for you as a male to buy a pair of trousers and a shirt once inside the store? My dear how much choice do you have? It is the same old pair of jeans and your shirt can just not get any more imaginative than the chromatic deviations that you can take your pick from. Be my guest but my guess (and I daresay it is quite a good one) is that you would be in and out of the activity in a matter of minutes. Let me now educate you about the various stages that are involved when a female (for example my own Ma) decides to undertake the monumental task of buying a piece of clothing.
Stage 1: Recon – This is the most important part of the entire process and serves as the prep stage for all future courses of action. If you are the unfortunate soul acting as the sidekick in this expedition, then prey you would do well to pay attention at this point of time. This is the stage when the scene is thoroughly evaluated for potential. Many a times further interactions will be nipped in the bud because of the failure of the ambience to enthrall the audience even when the thing required is right under their noses and at others just because the air was just right, a totally new quest will be launched entirely on the spur of the moment. It is the latter that has been so famously documented as “Impulse Buying”. Be whatever the case, this stage is the one that has the potential to snowball into a major time pass. So if you are in the mood of catching the all important last ball of the innings on the TV back home, you had better roll up your sleeves and show some enterprising attitude to convince the centre of discussion of this piece that she would do well to stick to her product and this place. Pay attention to the seemingly trifle words – “Her” and “This” in the last line. While the former will cause your pocket to thank you, the latter will be instrumental in getting you back home in time for what we discussed above
Stage 2: Umm.. – This part of the passage is brought to you courtesy of the keen observational tendencies of yours truly. Umm.. indicates that choices are being evaluated. The number of umm..(s) is a very important nuance in the subtle art of managing shopping (some might also call it a science). It indicates the number of variables that are going to be involved in the final solution of the fragile partial differential equation called “Purchase”. And any mathematician worth his salt would tell you that the more the umm..(s), the more are the chances of your suffering a nervous break down right in the middle of the shop.
Stage 3: Hmm.. - Let us now concentrate on Hmm.. If you thought that umm.. management was all that you had to worry about, meet his big brother, the esteemed Hmm.. Hmm.. indicates that while a decision has been reached, it is still nebulous and it is now that the ball is in your court. Take it from me when I tell you that now you will decide whether you want to axe this thing or axe your own foot! She will turn to you now and want your opinion on her buy. Attention my dear friend. If your response is too quick, she will know that you just want to get it out of the way and so your powers will be vetoed and the entire unending loop of evaluate, frustrate storekeeper, evaluate again, frustrate storekeeper more will start again. If you on the other hand take too much time to come out with the response, you have lost the game once again. So you must have a very measured timed response which should be something on the lines of “excellent choice. Nothing could be better. Pack it”
Stage 4: Hasty retreat – Don’t rest on your laurels until you have truly finished the race or in other words don’t take the shopping expedition for over until it actually is. Make sure that the exit is absolutely un-enthralling and nothing remotely interesting dots the sides of the path of retreat. This will require careful consideration and scan when you enter the place to find the best escape route and if I were a little bit overly cautious I would actually recommend visiting the area a day in advance to plan this part better but let’s be rational beings here. With a little practice I am sure you will do well in this part.
So was this entire thing to mock the living daylights out of the entire female species? Well I did start out with the intention of doing so but I just realized that the entire process of shopping I just described was for buying a pair of trousers for …… me. To be absolutely honest I have not had the courage to buy a single piece of clothing or shoes or ok anything without my Mom accosting me to the shop and making me do the needful. Come to think of it I would have been an absolute pig had this person not taken it upon herself to make a decent human being out of me. Yes she can be a pain when she is in her elements inside the confines of a shop. Irrespective of the item she is buying, she wants the buy in of the entire entourage that is accompanying her on this visit. But I am kind of pressed to realize that it is not always that she undertakes these trips for her personal benefit. In fact that happens to be quite the minority. At most times, I do happen to be the beneficiary of these expeditions. So am I still going to grumble over this entire episode? You bet I am but I am going to love her all the same for it.
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