shop till the guy (almost) drops

disclaimer 1: opinions expressed here are solely mine. opinions that i claim to apply to a specific group of people (e.g. guys), are based on my perception of that group, which is usually warped (yeah, even about guys :P)

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disclaimer 2: some parts of this post are true in spirit, but *all* of it is true in letter. strange but true.

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spoiler: the most interesting part of this post is at the end. if you know me well enough, or if you're a regular reader and have more intelligence than the average plant then you should know that already. if you're a plant and you're reading this then i'd love to meet you and shake your...um...leaf :D

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guys are widely known, for mostly justified reasons, to hate (or atleast dislike) shopping, especially with or for a girl. the endless number of jokes on this subject have already served to ram the point very clearly into the thick of every girl's brain. as a result, guys are rarely taken out shopping by girls, unless the thing being shopped for is for the guy concerned. this has led to a situation where girls (including some i know) actually prefer shopping alone to taking a guy along. i think that's a really sad thing, because i feel guys should be taken shopping by girls. if they're not, they'll never know what they're missing. and they're missing a lot. oh and by "going shopping" i don't mean sitting in the car in the parking lot while the girl shops alone. that definitely doesn't count.

so anyway, yesterday was the last day my best friend marj had to spend in mumbai before she leaves the country never to return (atleast, not for the next couple of years), so we decided to meet up for lunch. and since she's got a real packed schedule, she asked if i didn't mind accompanying her while she purchased a "couple" of things. i obviously didn't mind (best friend + leaving for good + last meeting + ***couple of things*** = pretty convincing).

lunch was awesome, and both of us were pleasantly full (me a little more pleasant than marj, but that was thanks to the long island ice tea being better for my temperament than the fruit juice or whatever that was, was for hers) when we decided to hit hill road at bandra, the mecca of shopping in mumbai. for women, atleast.

now i'm not the sort of guy to dismiss doing something just because it doesn't seem like a guy thing to do (short of cross-dressing and other freaky stuff), so i decided to be as participative in the shopping process as i could (and in some cases, as participative as i was allowed to be...like outside the lingerie shop). hence, i gave a lot of opinions, suggestions, and most of all, pointed out the most arbit stuff to her, the way that a kid points out everything edible to her mom in the hope that one of the things bing pointed at will somehow fit her mom's fancy and get purchased.

and i offered to carry her bags.

it was quite a bit of fun, really, flitting about from shop to shop, seeing a lot of outfits/shoes/junk jewelery on the way, some really hot/cute and some downright atrocious.

still, the bags were growing heaver by the minute, and from some point i was carrying about 5 big bags, each of which contained smaller bags of each individual purchase. a few hours later and "we" were still shopping. at that point, something happened that made up for the lack of the funny element of the entire evening:

a shopkeeper (excellent salesman that he was...) called out to me and said the rough equivalent of

you have brought so many things, now buy something for the girl.

i guess he's never gone shopping with a girl before. if he did, he would have definitely known that it's impossible for a guy to purchase 5 bags of stuff and yet have the girl purchase anything under 10 bags of stuff. it's just the way life is.

anyway, i thought i had it bad when i came across a guy flanked by two women...and about five loaded bags in *each* hand. as he passed me, i overheard him say:

you've already emptied my wallet, so why are we walking around now???

i guess he's never gone shopping with a girl before either. if he did, he would have known the answer - "because we're still shopping!!!"

oh and at the end of the 4 hour shop-a-thon, i forgot to buy the one thing i wanted (or rather, needed). i guess i'll just tell my mom and ask her to get it for me. and then not accompany her to the shop.