R
Julie A Joseph
Teacher GPS
That one advertisement in the local daily was enough to
pique my interest and I grabbed the phone.
“Hey guess what?” I literally screamed into the phone to
my bestie Gina. “Bada Market is offering to take in any
garbage or rubbish and give us coupons with which we
can shop with!!
“Ehm, garbage? Garbage as in…..?”, Gina curiously
asked.
“Hey GARBAGE!! Anything useless like old newspapers,
clothes, pots, pans…. anything. Each item has a value
though. Rs. 300 for old toys, Rs. 5000 for old electronics.
Rs 50 for old newspapers!...”, I ranted.
“Oh dear! I just sold off my old papers last week to that
stingy scrap guy.”, lamented Gina. “But I have so many
other useless things to be disposed off. Ooooohhh….
Imagine the number of coupons we will get in this
wonderful exchange!! Ok, let me start hunting for things
and we will go to Bada Market tomorrow morning.”
My husband wasn’t impressed. Nevertheless the next
day, Gina and I packed the car with all the garbage we
could find in our houses, bundled our children into the
backseat already brimming with rubbish which wouldn’t
fit into the trunk, and drove away in glee to the promised
land- Bada Market! On a mission to exchange our waste
for wealth!
The customer service personnel of BM (Bada Market)
courteously told us to unload the junk we had amassed,
into the basement of their store so that it could be
weighed and sorted.
As we were unloading the mountain of garbage, the
children (impatient to get into the mall to play arcade
games) started bickering (as usual).
I gave them a look wondering if BM would accept any
junk including the brats. “My little brat could fetch me a
year’s supply of dal and the elder one would get me a
global
public
school
year’s ration of rice”, I mused. However when the “South
Indian” in me chided me reminding me that I would get
bored of a daily dose of ‘dal-chawwal’, I decided not to
ask BM if I could exchange all my “junk”.
Finally done with the task of weighing our humongous
collection of junk, BM gave us our “vouchers”. WE WERE
RICH!!
Well, until we read the fine print…. It said “Exchange
NOT valid on the following items on the list (the list had
all the items a person generally needed). Other terms and
conditions made it impossible to use a voucher worth Rs.
100 unless we shopped for Rs.10000/-. So inadvertently,
the coupons themselves were totally useless and a waste!
The ride back was silent. Even the children were
surprisingly quiet, probably because of the palpable
gloom.
Just as we got out of the car carrying our meagre
shopping, I met my husband on his way out. “Oh,
finished your shopping already? How was it?” he asked.
Disappointedly, I shook my head and declared “All are
cheats. Marketing strategies! False claims and nothing
else. And to think I actually fell for it. I, of all people. Can
you imagine?” I was indignant.
Hubby dearest didn’t seem surprised. He said, “Gina, once
your sensible friend went and bought 10 to 15 bottles of
sunflower oil because she saw the word “FREE” on it?
Then when she asked for the freebie, the cashier pointed
out that it was “Cholesterol Free?!”
With a smirk, he drove away as Gina chuckled.
Sheepishly I stepped into my house, definitely NOT richer
by a penny. But as I looked around, I noticed that my
house was rid of all junk.
I smiled.
Thank God for the small mercies!
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