Today I shopped for a t-shirt at a multi-brand departmental store. I found one t-shirt after strolling for half an hour in the store. I took the t-shirt and went to the cash counter. I found that all the three cash counters were occupied.
I checked the number of people in the three queues and joined the queue with just two people. As the clerk took clothes from the first lady I looked at the giant TV hung behind the clerk. The TV was airing some senseless songs. The dancers were doing their steps as if they were in an aerobic class. Someone had turned off the volume and the songs brought me back of memories of Charlie Chaplin.
After the lady checkout it was the turn of a girl. I had a look at her baskets and felt that they had more clothes than I had in my entire wardrobe. I really felt sorry for her. Surely some freak may have broken into her home and along with her laptop, TV, music system would have stolen all her clothes.
Since my only concern my t-shirt , I went back to watching the latest version of Charlie Chaplin. Meanwhile the TV channel had realised that I didn't had remote control of the TV. This allowed it to switch to commercials. I looked at few commercials and realised that books are still much better medium of entertainment than TV. I prefer to read books than watching TV because books don't have any commercials in them. I have never came across a book that says: the next chapter has been brought to you by Pespi.
Being bored, I decided to look what was happening at the other two cash counters. This was not a wise decision. Both the counters had guys who had joined their queue after me. They were making payments while I was being tortured by irritating commercials.
I looked at the girl standing in front of me. The girl had just put another basket on the counter. Standing in the queue, watching irritating commercials and losing to the guys in the other two queues took away all the pity which she had earned by buying so many clothes.
I decided to tell her," Look sister, read the signals. When it takes more than five minutes for the clerk to check all your purchases, it means you are buying too many clothes. You will wear half of these clothes and then throw them away in your closet forever. You may not even wear the other half of the clothes because they would have become out of fashion by the time you have tried the first half once. So why don't you do me a favour. Tell the clerk that you forgotten your credit card at home and allow me buy one t-shirt."
I thought it was brilliant idea. After all, there is nothing wrong in getting a quick service even if you have to act like a jerk. However before I could act like a jerk, I heard one of the clerks on the other counters shout at me, "Sir, this counter is free." I wanted to tell the clerk to shut up. Here was my chance to act like a jerk and he was messing it up. I didn't liked it. However, I decided to switch lanes because more then being a jerk I preferred to walk out of the store within the next two minutes.
To sum up
Never judge a book by its cover and a person by its clothes. The book with a great cover may be crap and the person with a great dressing sense may be a shopaholic.
