So you were thinking there is nothing to do on a boring Saturday or Sunday in Sunny Singapore. You made numerous trips to Orchard, tried every pub in Clarque Quay and Boat Quay. You even went to Chinese Garden. 'So how'?
Well, take a closer look. There is this exciting gameshow playing every weekend pretty close to home no matter where you stay in this frying pan of a city. The venue is called 'FairPrice' and the game is called 'The weekend grocery shopping challenge'. This is no laughing matter, its a serious game out there! Each man to himself....
Let me explain. It is sort of an obstacle course, it consists of physical and mental challenges. The first challenge is to overcome your morbid fear of maddening crowds. They are kind enough to give you sufficient practice on this front as you navigate from the entrance of JP to the basement.
The second challenge - 'Grab a basket'. You have to throw yourself into this throbbing, violent mass of fellow competitors and get hold of a basket. Dont think that physical strength gives you an advantage here. I was left standing without a basket (all 110 kilos of me) while petite grandmas made their way into the store! Agility counts! You dont have to lose heart if you were beaten in the first step like me. They let you go out to the cash counter and get a basket but you lose precious time as your competitors successfully forge ahead.
You quickly pick up a packet of apples and oranges (no, comparing them is not the next challenge) and move on to the dairy section. Here, you meet the 'confused dairy buyer twins'. They are brothers who are arguing over which brand of milk to buy. They alternatively pick up and replace cartons of milk, all the while arguing about their choices. They block everyone else from picking up milk. You can push them aside or choose to nimbly put your hands through any available gap (stop imagining things) and pick up your cartons. Each choice comes with its own consequences from being arrested for assault to being labelled a pervert. It's part of the game. Time to move on.
Next, you see that the weighing counter is empty, others are busy with various other stuff and you go on to pick up vegetables all the while smiling at your own intelligence and others' stupidity. You pick up your vegetables and head towards the counter when you see that the line has suddenly grown a mile long! Did you waste too much time in that section or was this a deliberate ploy to fool the first time player? We will never know. You waste some more time and trudge along with a significantly heavy basket. That was the first surprise challenge- 'The Weighing Counter Mirage'.
The next level - 'Screwed Up Category Management'. If you think navigating thru the numerous shelves at fairPrice is a tough task by itself, try doing it while tugging along a 50 Kilo shopping basket. Remember, you get shoved, kicked and trampled by fellow competitors at the same time. The competition is a mad house at this stage. It is a test of grit, determination and sheer tolerance.
You zig-zag your way thru those shelves picking up the last few items and you are finally ready for the last obstacle - 'the Cash Counter'. NO WAIT! You get hit by the second surprise challenge - 'The inconsiderate mobile phone user'. He springs up from nowhere, he has exactly two small packages and his son sitting in a large shopping cart and he blocks the most crucial transit point thus bringing competitor traffic to a halt. At this point, all you want to do is just pulverize him into atoms and forge ahead. But again - this action comes with a heavy penalty - life in prison and a life time ban from shopping at FairPrice! I agree, both options seem like a blessing at this point in time though.
You tactfully overcome the surprise challenge and finally come to 'the Cash Counter'. This is a mental challenge. The lady at the counter continuously talks to her colleague in Chinese and asks you sudden questions in English to which you must respond appropriately. It really tests your concentration after the harrowing obstacle race. If you respond wrongly or fail to respond altogether, there are penalties - You get billed wrongly!
You come out of this challenge, drained of all energy and patience when they tell you vaguely that the prize is a 30% lesser final bill. Well, 30% of my $30 bill - Thats a grand prize of $9.00! Well, if Ms.Singapore Universe gets $2,500 you surely didn't expect more than this, did you?
You walk out of Jurong Point in a daze and slowly trudge towards home. The sun sets and another weekend in Sunny Singapore draws to a close.
2 comments:
The English poet, Milton, once remarked,"They also serve who stand and wait." But little did he know that the 'modern man' will be too much engrossed in the rigmarole of daily life that he wouldn't have regard for such niceties.
In one of those fateful moments when sense of adventure benumbed my reasoning faculty, I too visited JP for dinner at its kopitiam on a friday evening. You can well appreciate the plight of a claustrophobic like me when subjected to such a nightmarish experience. It was a queer sight to see the docile Singaporeans throwing all civility to winds and grabbing whichever stool/chair they could find to sit on. I got shoved and pushed by the young and old alike. The entire hall was jam-packed and people were impatiently waiting for their turn to grab a seat. I beat a hasty retreat from the pell-mell of JP with empty stomach. I took a vow not to visit it during weekends.
I loved the 'so how'. And bro, wats the story with those brothers man. Sounded a bit ugghhh... hehehe... Nice one. Trust you to make a story out of fairprice. Well done. By the way, though you might like to refer to me as the 'click crazy sardar', I must warn you that you will be gramatically incorrect. You either refer to me as sardar or crazy!
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