Two Shoppers and one Male - I

Part 1: The Wait.

Find an excuse, if you will, to land yourself in my shoes on the hot Saturday afternoon that today was. My office-friend has oflate been making herself more-than-useful in facilitating my interaction with someone-in-particular. And today I offered to take her (and my office-friend) out to lunch. In the following passages, I shall detail the happenings that were eye-openers, demeaners, and stress-testers all rolled into one awesome afternoon.

The day begins with an unseemingly timely call from Lovely-M (my office-friend) at 11.55AM, inquiring of me whether I am up and awake. I faithfully fake a very active and chirpy voice, suggesting that I de-slumbered atleast 2 hours before; an argument she buys without contention. Upon further deliberations, we agree to meet up at Galleria Market, where I have some business to attend to. It is mutually decided that 1.00PM seems a comfortable pitstop -- it would give me the 65 minutes to wash up, get ready, board a bus, get off, switch to a quick ramble and reach galleria, wind up my work and be ready to receive my accompaniments for the afternoon.

(The caveat, which Lovely-M divulged in a very happy-go-lucky fashion, was that Rare-Flower (her fellow companion and the key lady in question from my perspective) was still asleep while our conference was in progress. To one with feeble woman-intellect as I, 65 minutes was still good enough a window for two ladies to get ready -- even with one who was merrily sleeping away at the start.)

Fine, So I wash up, get ready, board a bus, get off, switch to a quick ramble, reach galleria, hurriedly wind up my work and get ready to receive my accompaniments. And I am done by 1:15PM, roughly 10 minutes late by the 1 o'clock Golden Deadline. I apologetically call up Lovely-M, and ask whether they have been waiting. And lo and behold! It isn't Lovely-M who responds, but the Rare-Flower! And the flower has just blossomed out of her slumber, Lovely-M is in the shower, AFTER WHICH Rare-Flower shall proceed for the cleansing, and even with a reasonably okayish overlap permitted, it will still be a good hour and a half before they are in good stead to meet me.

[Lets switch from present-tense to the narrative past-tense form of writing now. This is becoming painfully difficult to sustain.]

So I was in possession of three Chocolate slabs by now, which were duly purchased for the three of us; and given the time window of 95 odd minutes which I was so rudely blessed with, I knew what to do with the chocolates. It had to be either the summer heat melting them to a gooey or yours-sincerely, gobbling them up into a gooey. I obliged, and in no time did the first slab out of sight. With 90 minutes, 2 rapidly melting chocolate slabs and absolutely nothing to do, I decided to go around Galleria Market place. I chanced upon the Airtel DSL Care center, inquired about the timelines on which disconnection can be done, paid off my dues; then I went over to the post-paid connection Care Center, inquired about cancellation again, paid off dues. Next I barged into a food/stationery shop, asked for a large soft-drink bottle, guzzled it down with the second chocolate in what can be fairly described as a jiffy. Another 60 odd minutes to go. I tried calling up some old friends, but serially all of them were conspicuously missing from the side of their handsets.

Nevermind, my eyes flashed as I took notice of a nice bookstore in a corner. I walked in through the tinkle-door, went over to the non-fiction section, comfortably perched my tanned rear upon the beanbag and began surfing books. (Never had an Air Conditioner been such a welcome relief). And thus the last half the agonizing wait became easy to cope with. Save the hunger component, which there was little I could do about. With around 15 more minutes of the Wait left, I received another call from the ladies. In this call, I am informed that Lovely-M hadn't factored her newly acquired driving skills into the equation, and that I should add another comfortable 20 minutes-worth of extra-cautious driving to the balance.

Let us not get into how the final 30 odd mintues passed, there is truly nothing exceptional worth mentioning. I however did have one chocolate remaining on me when the ladies were in breathing distance. Now courtesy would dictate that I save it for the encounter, and that I cordially forward it to the ladies as the sole remaining warrior(apologizing ofcourse, profusely for having eaten the other two). But somethings get to your head. I munched it to the wrapper with surgical precision in time, and the first thing I said when I seated myself in Lovely-M's car was, "Can I stick this empty chocolate wrapper on your car seat?"

Read up Part 2 if you liked this one...