Make Up Your Mind....

It was one of those days when I just wished I never existed. Managed to drag my self to work only to find my self slowly disappearing into oblivion.

Yeah, I was feeling pretty rocky. With not much work to do, I sat at my desk trying to skim through the pages of an e-book on Agile Testing. But I was sure my mind was pre-occupied with something else. My friends who generally are the repositories for my tales of woe were busy with their chores. I don’t know if you have ever experienced it, but it is a very unpleasant thing when the mere sight of an Inbox or the GTalk widget began to depress me. I did not feel well. I felt sluggish - physically and mentally.

Suddenly I decided to do something to pep me up. Shop - Binge! The idea was absolutely new to me and seemed the only refreshment to cheer my desolate soul. Clothes, Shoes, Make-up, Perfumes....ah! The options were unlimited. I did hear that tiny lil' voice screaming “NO”, but I paid no heed to it , shook off the gloom that held me down and ventured out in search of a shop that would cater my needs for the moment.

As I entered the nearest H&G outlet, the fresh air in the shop sluiced through my lungs, magically drawing me towards the shelves lined with the best of the beauty products the industry had to offer. The best, which advertised to change a woman's life, turn her life topsy turvy, set her on the right track and what not...

I was the perfect bait. My face broken, lips chapped, oily hair plastered to the scalp, nevertheless made me look like a whimp in paradise.
As I was staring at the creams and powders, the sales woman approached me.

“How can I help you, Madam?”
“Eh?”
“How can I help you, Madam?” she repeated again with a pretty smile on her glossy lips.
“I’ll look around for a while “I said sounding like a lok ayukta officer who had decided to raid a house, but not sure about what to search for.

15 minutes later I was completely confused and found myself going back to the sales woman like a lost kid.
“I want to buy that thing... you know. That thing...Thing...that “, I said wildly gesturing at her.
“What thing?” she asked apparently baffled at my sign language.
“That thing...the thing “I said pointing at my lips.
“Oh lipstick?”
“No...No...That thing...” It occurred to me that I was not only confused, but was on the verge of a breakdown. Not only was I speaking gibberish, I was also not able to convey one of the most important commodities that a woman must have in her purse. A Lip Gloss!!!

Sensing my situation, the saleswoman asked me to wait and called out at one of her collegues
“Aye Geeta, swalpa baare illi. Customer na attend maadu”.
[Translation: Hey Geeta. Please attend this loony customer.] I guess she must have been tired playing dumb charades with me. Then came Geeta. A woman in her mid-twenties, tall with patrician features. I was studying her intently when she approached me and asked,

“Yes madam, how can I help you?”
“Eh?” . This was not happening!! I was going in loops. Infinite loops!! This is going nowhere.
“Is there anything you wish to buy? Is there anything you want? “She asked in a syrupy voice which could have sold a million insurances.
“I want to buy some make-up “ I said in a feeble tone.

She smiled back at me and led me to the farthermost section of the shop.The next 30 minutes was well spent in a thorough induction about make-up accessories which I never knew existed in the first place. Concealers, toners, moisturizers, blushers, cleansers , lotions, eye shadows...
I sat there savoring the knowledge in a way like Arjuna did while Krishna rendered the Bhagavad-Gita on the battle field. The entire session proved to be very therapeutic. Now I was armed with all the necessary weapons to face the world with a new found confidence.

It is an authentic law in a woman's world, that the amount billed when a woman shops during leisure is directly proportional to the degree of depression she faced. While billing the accessories, I saw another lady getting her items billed for a whooping amount of 5000 bucks!!! Good Lord!
She must have been on a verge of suicide!!....

[PS: The next day my colleague actually complemented about the radiance on my face and asked me the reason behind it. I grinned like a Cheshire cat and replied “Because...I'm worth it ".]