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04:01 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
December 16, 2013
A Chinese guy shot himself last week in deep frustration because his wife would not stop shopping. He just kind of flipped his lid and went bang. Know the feeling, all husbands/boys do, it is that can we go home now it’s time for the T20 and the wife is trying out her 214th pair of shoes and the shoe shop staff are planning mass suicide.
You have the same sinking sensation in a sari shop. My mum would make them unravel dozens of saris then suddenly say, not today, migoodness, look at the time. And we’d leave this sea of color and five guys who work there giving us the look because they have to wrap them up now…at least buy one.
The gold souk is murderous on men. You can see husbands sort of about to burst into a chorus or two of a Gregorian chant before martyring themselves. Here, it is not just the buying, it is also the cost. All wives believe their husbands have more money than they actually do. It is like Peter’s Principle or Murphy’s law, so the man is standing there fidgeting and the wife is saying, this one or that one, or how about those droplets and the only droplets he can think of reside in his eyes as he sees his bank account shrinking dramatically.
Aunts are terrible. We used to hide as kids if an aunt announced a shopping trip. Like no one wanted to make it. Because aunts, wives, mums, they all plan to go out and buy something specific like a new pressure cooker. Then they buy everything else except the pressure cooker. Never understood how it works but the pressure cooker, which was the whole idea of the trip, does not even get a look in.
The Chinese man must have called it a day in the grocery shop because that is where women are complete disbelievers. They examine every tomato, every stick of celery, every potato, each carrot, the apples, plums, every grape before moving the chosen ones to first base.
And they bargain, men cannot bargain. They do not have the moxy. If they walk away and say, no, no, no, too much the shopkeeper won’t stop them, they’ll have to keep walking.
Women, on the other hand, are stopped. You say, look, he was 400, he is not going to give it to you for 150, don’t be ridiculous. He does. He gives it for 140. He calls her back. I have seen it, I have, I have and you know what, I would have paid 400…bang.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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