Ephrem Endale Contributer
Mental therapy; that’s one tag they give to shopping. No Sir; around here shopping is far from being mental therapy. It could be a million and one things except mental therapy. Well, at least this writer thinks so. Maybe he does too little shopping to get close to mental anything. One thing I can tell you and stand by my words all the way is that during holiday seasons especially the last few days to whatever the holiday might be shopping is a mental there… sorry, torture! Yes that’s what it is and no amount of so-called ‘political correctness’ would do any good to it. Prices, of course, like they often do may leave you shaking in your boots.
“How much is that sheep?”
“Which one?”
“The one with the white spot on its forehead.”
“Nine thousand birr.”
“What! Nine thousand birr! I have to work 24/7 for two, three months to get that much money!”
“Ok; I’ll give it to you eight thousand birr and that’s final.”
So, eight thousand birr leave you with not much fanfare with your eyes following the birr notes all the way to the merchant’s pockets. A smiling merchant, a violently sneezing customer; that’s how the scene plays out. When you part with that much money faster than a blink sneezing is the least reaction! (Sorry but before you part with all those two hundred birr notes just a small question; have you paid back your debts. You know, you’re in dept. up to your neck! And don’t you think you have to protect from the bridges from falling off and settle for the inexpensive way through the holiday. Anyway, who am I to tell you what to buy or not!)
“How much is this chicken?”
“A thousand birr.”
“Why, I could buy two with that sum.”
“So why are you wasting your time here?”
“Let me take it for five hundred birr.”
“Look lady, I’ll give it to you for nine hundred birr. Take it or get out of the way; you’re blocking other customers.” So, goes nine hundred birr fly away giving the customer the felling like she has been pricked by nine hundred needles.
However fortunate is the fact that after the days or even the couple of weeks of the ‘shopping curse’ (Did I really call it ‘a curse!) the actual holiday is a completely different affair. Even the most respected and accomplished psychic would be left in virtual limbo trying to explain how things change in such ‘totality.’ On that actual day it’s smiles all round as everyone appears to have won quite hefty chunks of some multi-million birr jackpot. The eight thousand birr sheep, the nine hundred birr chicken, the nine hundred a kilo birr butter etc. aren’t even afterthoughts.
“Sorry, weren’t you the lady who almost triggered a riot because you were asked nine hundred birr for some chicken with the innocence that looked almost human?”
“Yes, I am.”
“How come you’re all teeth now?”
“Well, after all it is a holiday!” The pain of shopping, the torture of shopping, the ‘Aliens and Predators’ atmosphere of shopping is no more issue on the holiday. But then, it will, it will become an issue once the holiday is over and families sit down talk about the monthly household budget.
“We need forty kilos of teff.” The bread winner who seems to have never learnt from experience hands over two thousand birr.
“What’s this?”
“What’s what?”
“What is this two thousand birr for?”
“Didn’t you just say we need forty kilos of teff?”
“Oh, Save Us, Mother Mary! You want me to buy forty kilos of teff for two thousand birr?”
“That’s all I have. Remember I spent eight thousand birr on a single goddamned sheep! And you just threw away nine hundred birr for a chicken no bigger than the small birds in our backyard.”
Now that is not a very nice way of putting things. He didn’t complain when he was munching on the chicken breasts and was in fact full of praises for his wife’s shopping skills. “You really know how to shop, don’t you? Where in the world did you get chicken this big! The breast could be a whole breakfast!
On torment of shopping is the mistreatment you get from these angry, confrontational shopkeepers all over the place. You like some pair of shoes and ask the price.
“You can have it for four thousand five hundred birr.” Of course have become familiar with such price quotes and you don’t overwork your sensitive and delicate nerves.
“Let me tell you what, I’ll take it for three thousand.”
All of a sudden the shopkeeper is full of horns and fangs. The last person you’ve seen so angry is Robert De Niro, and he did it onscreen. You were only supposed to convince him to sell you the pair of shoes for three grand and he turns into some candidate for some anger management class. You seldom see people angry at the level he was and that gives you what they call goose bumps or things like that. Of course, there is also the possibility of faking anger. But genuine or faking, it doesn’t go well with you whose day all of a sudden developed a big black spot just because some shopkeeper with strange hair style and even stranger pair of jeans.
There are those who knowingly cheat you out of your hard earned money and smile about it all the way to the bank or those private safes in the farthest corners of their bedrooms. They blatantly empty your pockets dry and they go away with hundreds of stolen smiles on their faces. That’s what they do; they literally mug you and go away not only with your money but with your smile. What! Are you telling me you never heard of smiles being stolen!
There is this talk of a bad sheep found in every flock. How good it could have been if we can say that about the thousands and thousands of shopkeepers, retailers and the like we face daily! Well, that doesn’t happen. Somehow these days coming across genuine business people is more of wild wish rather than something that could be transformed into reality.
Of course, tired of getting into verbal confrontations in the seven of the ten shops you visit you try to steady the rocking boat. You know why? You realize that if and when the boat sinks you’re the one without the life jacket! Aha! Wish you all happy Easter celebrations.
So the question is that when it comes to the business person, customer interaction who owns the life jacket.
The Ethiopian Herald April 16/2023