我爱 （邓）小平

A tasteless bad pun on Deng's name "Xiao Ping". Each time I tell my friends I am going to Deng XIaoping, they know what I am referring to - shopping (siow pin, get it?).
 
Ivan has a blog on the books he has read or reading. I find it a great way to keep a "I read therefore I am" log. That gave me an idea - how to create the scariest blog on this planet - a shopping blog.    Dated entries on
 
1. who we shop with
2. where we shop
3. the modus operandi
4. what we bought
5. what we bought and regret later
6. what we almost bought and 
7. what we almost bought  but left in a huff (and regretted like hell later) - just becos our non-metrosexual, insenstive boyfriend or husband muttered with the interest of a fly: "buy lor.... quick lah, if like, buy lah!".
etc etc
 
My blog can be titled "The more you buy the more you save" or "Sunzi and the art of shopping".
 
To many women (including myself and the shop‘ping 精＇ｓ in my family), shopping is not merely walk around and hope to buy. Shopping is COMBAT man! We devise strategies, requiring actions on both our physical and psychological levels.
 
 
1. Basic Equipement Considerations
Plan carefully as not to overload. You can consider the following optional equipment. Measuring tapes* (you cannot trust the size labels on factory outlet items. A bottle of mineral water (you may get thirty from price negotiation). Wet tissues (cleaning your hands from the dust and dirt while ravaging through cartons of sales items). Plasters/Bandaids for corns and blisters.
 
2. Rookie training
If you shop with a group of rookies, they need training. Take them into the heat of a summer sales.
 
3. Take a mixed set of "weapons"
Cash, Octopus cards, Credit cards, Vouchers, VIP cards,
 
4. Load craft.
Another friend with larger range of weapons. Sizeable friends to block off other attackers on the same item you have set your eyes on.
 
5. Spread out and cover each other
Call each other on cell phone or walkie talkie to compare prices.
 
etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
 
 
Shopping is also a sacred act. You can be ordanined as a shoppinguru bodhishoptra once you can tell the novice shopper friends -  what brand, how to pronounce it, which shop, how to get there by land, sea, air, best time to be there, and which floor, which rack, how often they have sales and even the opening hours, and the locations of the nearest ATMs and toilets.
 
Malls and factory outlets are our niravana-land. Men do not and probably never will understand the karma of shopping.
 
[post 20/1997]