The last couple of days were spent on burning through two considerably weighty tomes as a means of compensating for two whole years of neglecting my all-time bosom-buddies: books. And this has left me with nothing but an indescribable satisfaction and sense of well-being, similar to the feeling of having eaten a delightful, wholesome meal. Burp.
The last couple of hours were spent in air-conditioned, perpetually brand-new-looking 'boutiques' (places where we pay not just for the clothes we buy, but for the elaborate displays, the shiny tiles, the cleaner who keeps them looking that way, the bugging salesgirls who look better dressed than you are, the uniforms that keep them looking that way, etc.etc.) shopping for clothes. And this seemingly simple (and purportedly enjoyable) activity has left me with a crack-a-lacking headache that could only have been my sensible brain trying to break out of my skull in order to escape from the sheer torture. Blech.
My phobia of clothes' shops shares its origins with my phobia of beauty parlours; namely, my Mom. These are, arguably, her two favourite places on earth. She is one of those women who take pride in looking well-groomed. Don't get me wrong; I have only respect for their flawless taste in haute couture and make-up and their firm (and indisputable) belief that they deserve nothing less. But I fail to understand why they have absolutely no qualms about doling out the moolah in truckloads for this purpose when there are a million other causes crying out for a bit of funding. Why do these persons spend eye-popping amounts on, say, reducing the almost imperceptible darkness around their eyes, when a tenth of the value could save lives? I'm sure a charity box is an infinitely more deserving candidate than a minuscule tube of some elixir of dubious effectiveness.
Most people, including my mother, shrug off the verbal version of the above 'righteous rant' with an annoyed 'Oh, you won't understand--you aren't fit to be a girl!' Thus silenced, I would simply (sullenly) watch my mother spending HUGE (in my opinion) quantities-- both in terms of money and time-- on clothes, cosmetics and the like. Years of silently witnessing (mom often forces me to accompany her) such atrocities have caused my disagreement to insidiously morph into a full-blown terror of being trapped in a ready-mades' store or a saloon for more than an hour. My complete lack of fashion-sense only adds to my utter bewilderment upon seeing the massive piles of clothes (or the massive, unflatteringly near-nude, green/purple-faced women, as the case may be) assaulting my eyes everywhere.
It is this person who was, today, forced to undertake the task of buying clothes for none other than.... my MOM. Yes, yes, you may now snicker about poetic justice and irony and blah.
Anyway, we (me, uncle, aunt) were leaving the third shop or so (none of the endless rows of clothes in these places seemed to fit my mom's exacting description of what I should buy), when amid the mild throbbing in my head that warned of an imminent headache, rang an alarm: WHERE IS YOUR PURSE??
Uh-oh. I stared in despair at my empty hand, within which my purse--containing a lot of money and my cell--was supposed to snugly nestle. Search parties were despatched immediately, and I dashed about like a freaked-out goose, trying to get my famously 'absent' mind to remember where I had left the darned thing. The reel of images (of my parents sticking a skewer through me and slowly roasting me over a spit) that goes through my head didn't help. At all. That's when I heard it: the faint tinkling of my ringtone from somewhere among the mind-boggling array of garments. I found myself identifying with the last person I expected to: The rouge-cheeked, scarlet-lipped, amply-endowed heroine of some campy movie who hears the call of her beloved as she despairingly searches the green meadow. My joyful run towards the source of the sound might as well have been in slow motion, accompanied by a triumphant background score. And there it was: hidden beneath a revolting pile of clothes. Aaaahhh....the relief.
As we headed towards the car, with me sheepishly grinning under my uncle's and aunt's scorching looks, I realized that the whole rigmarole had sped up the onset of a headache of gargantuan proportions.
I remember seeing a lot of brightly coloured little tags and boards happily announcing a million different offers and discounts, like so many beacons of the generosity and pure intent of the sellers (go ahead; call me a fool, but you simply can't look at those perky little things and still have the heart to brand them as desperate traps for gullible buyers). At the end of it all, though, all I'm left with is a considerably lighter (and nearly lost) purse, a blinding headache, and a fresh addition to my (long) list of 'Traumatic Sartorial and Cosmetic Experiences'.
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