Caveat Emptor: I drafted this post circa June,2009. Thanks to the hassles (or joy, depending on how you look at it) of putting in my resignation letter, I never got around to posting it, until now that is. Pliss be to excuse if the incident has gone from sweet to sour.
Last weekend, my roomies and myself went over to purchase some clothes from the Big Bazaar in Mysore. As you may be aware, guys visit Malls to shop for clothes only when something catastrophic happens, such as a wardrobe burning down. Most other times, we make do with wearing clothes inside out or if the situation is out of hand, *Shudder* getting our Laundry done.
We were almost done with our purchases, when we heard an announcement informing us that for every 1000 bucks worth of stuff bought, they were giving away 5Kgs of sugar. Since sugar is the staple diet of Indians, we decided to up our purchases to 2000 bucks, thereby netting us a cool 10Kgs of sugar. Once the bills were settled, we went up and claimed our 10Kgs of sugar. Which was when we realized how much 10Kgs of sugar really is. It may not sound like a lot, but believe me, it weighs a lot, probably even more than 15Kgs of sugar. Considering that we had already gotten it for free, we lugged the 10Kgs of sugar back home and made up this elaborate story on the way :
We enter shopping Mall. See 'buy one get one free' offer applicable to 5Kg sugar packs. Brains get boggled at the Potential Savings. Purchase a 5Kg sugar pack. Gloat at how recession-wise we are.
SCENE II: Our House in Mysore.
Like the spoils won from a fierce battle, we cradled the sugar in our arms. On opening the door, my roomie is surprised to see a huge packet of sugar paying him a visit. Lesser mortals would have gotten spooked, but not my roomie. No sir, he caught onto the fact that we were hiding behind the packet and offered to help with the heavy load. In one swift move, he took the bill out of the shopping bag without disturbing the sugar packet in my arms. We were depressed that our game was up, since the sugar, being free, would have never been billed.
Hearing my roomie go seething mad, slightly changed that opinion. He was absolutely horrified by the 10 Kgs of sugar printed on the bill, even more shocking was his discovery that apparently, we had paid for it. Although we were a little taken aback by this fact, we decided to play along. Needless to say, on explaining our recession beating idea to him, our roomie went ballistic. He began giving us a lecture on how much sugar an average Indian Family would use, how the average production of sugar in some states is less than 10 Kgs, yada yada yada. Needless to say, we burst out laughing on hearing this, which only added fuel to his flaming rage!
Much madness ensued, until our ears were sore from listening to all the choicest epithets, some, in languages that we were unfamiliar with. (What the hell is a *@%#*!@ anyway?)
Finally, good reason prevailed and we explained how we got it free. Now the problem changed from one of Cost Accounting to one of Inventory management. Apparently, we had no storage space for 10 Kgs of sugar. Which was when we hit upon the next bright idea of the day: Give away 5 Kgs of sugar to the Landlord. Although we didn't get the drastic reduction in our rent that we expected, we had saved the day and probably the whole district from an ant invasion. To this day, I can think of the Landlord paying his milkman, cable guy and other assorted folks in sugar. As for the 5 Kgs that we had with us? 2 packets of Gulab Jamun mix and we were almost half way through. Now excuse me while I get myself tested for Diabetes.
