The Shopping Spree
Women are really great. They will not disappoint you ... hey hold on...don’t assume this is going to be a feminist advocated view. Let me just complete the sentence: They will never disappoint you if you challenge them to spend huge amounts of money within minutes. They are innately blessed with this art of being able to shop shop and shop till they drop. With the festive season on and the shops decorated to attract the fairer sex especially, this is the perfect time to do a research on the ladies’ marketing strategies.
One thing that I often notice is the way they invade the shops and pleasantly remark, how pretty, how cute, wao, it’s amazing et al; as if the product being shown to them is the only unique thing available, when in reality, it would have many twin brothers and sisters. Usually the damsel with a huge purse gets in with her husband who, within minutes into the shop, is relegated to the role of an approval machine. Every few moments, she would show him a thing and demand his opinion. All the husbands seem to respond mechanically and melancholily with words “Nice, “Good” …..well their vocabularies end there. The poor men keep looking at their watches and then look at the bill …howsoever huge the amount in there, they somehow always seem to be glad that the ordeal has ended.
This reminds me of the times when I used to go shopping with my parents. My father would inadvertently enter a book shoppe and ask my mother to meet him there after an hour or so when we had finished our buying works. My mother would always crib at his insensitivity. But aren’t all men insensitive to shopping? Is it not undoubtedly a feminine trait? Few months back Femina published shopping as its cover story advocating its advantages, tricks and pleasures. Was it required at all? Do females need an excuse to shop?
The most true saying I’ve ever heard is “A man will pay Rs.2 for a one rupee thing that he needs while a woman will pay Re.1 for a two rupee thing that she doesn’t need”. Well yes, this is another of her skills: Bargaining. Eating the shopkeeper’s head till he skews the price in her favour. Sales, discount fairs are all the tricks that make use of this psychological satisfaction of hers’. Once, a friend of mine confessed with pride that she can spend any amount of money in one evening. She further claimed, all that she’ll buy would be relevant. Now this is it: the confidence of having bought nothing that is a waste. Ah! I know you are eager to argue that relevant is a relative term. Ya it is! Thirty pairs of shoes already choking the racks and still the thirty first one acquired is a relevant purchase! Well yes it is, only if you are a woman!
Fine now, enough of poking fun at the feminine craze of spending. But hey what else would men earn for if the ladies won’t disburse? Imagine your house and yourself looking stale in all those old things if the women of your house stopped buying the new and trendy stuff? And above all, there would result an economic depression worse than the one facing America at the moment if SHE stopped filling in her space with all those current inventions. The revolutions that have led to cosmetics, fabrics, decoratives, foot wares, watches, even ties, suitcases…being produced with the latest techniques are all due to her. She deserves the credit not only for keeping your home updated but also giving a boon to the industrial revolution.
So the next time your better half asks you, “Darling, isn’t this sari great!” Jump with joy and tell her, you are great for whom it is made… buy it and rush out of the shop… into another mall. For, till there are women, there is pleasure in purchasing and making.
