I am such a consumer!! We ALL are! Each one of us! I went out to get a pair of earrings but instead of that I bought a pair of gray sporty floaters and a pair of classy chic girly sandals! Plus I’ve got this weird purple fetish, and I bought other stuff.. all of it purple. Man there is so much of stuff everywhere! Shops, malls, showrooms, supermarkets.. they’re all stuffed with so MUCH of stuff!
We also happened to go to Big Bazaar because mom wanted a couple of.. (note: ‘a couple of’) household stuff.. you know, grocery items. Turns out, it was one of the ‘Maha Bachat’ days. They’re like these 6 days where they offer a lot of offers and everything is cheaper. Like we need any more offers :\ Anyway, it was a crazy crazy MADhouse! It seemed like EVERY body was out. Shopping shopping shopping, stuffing their carts with anything and everything. Shampoos, wafers, toilet cleaners, shoes, fruits, toys, plastic boxes, utensils, diapers, clothes.. anything you can imagine! Didn’t matter if they needed it or not. It was on a buy-one-get-one-free-offer man; how could they not buy?! There was no place to walk, let alone move your trolley along the passages. And those loud screaming, overweight women clad in eye-damaging sarees are no fun to watch either. Women just have to see something free with something and they will just lunge at it like it is gold. And they can't resist limited offers. They'll see something with the tag 'Hurry!' on something, and snatch! cling! there it goes into their overflowing cart!
In the end, as it always happens with my mom, our ‘couple of things’ turned out to be a cart-full of stuff. Sigh. In her defense, she is a woman. As I stood there watching our stuff getting packed, I saw all the people waiting in the line, grumbling, looking at their watches, screaming at the others who were breaking the queues, bumping and jostling against each other, I thought.. people go through all this just to come to this maddeningly loud and claustrophobic place to buy.. stuff?! Stuff to put into their already stuffed houses?! How do they have the patience?! What do they do with so much of stuff?
It reminded me of a George Carlin show I had seen once where he talked about stuff. For those who don’t know, George Carlin is one of the greatest stand-up comedians ever! He is cynical, sarcastic, extremely witty, shameless, a little bit of crazy and speaks the truth out bare. This is what he had said,
“That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!
Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the goddamn place!”
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!
Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the goddamn place!”
True, ain’t it? And so we continue, buying more and more stuff, and we continue doing that until we die. There’s never a time when we feel we have finally bought all the stuff we wanted. We’re always gonna desire for more! And boy, do we like the feeling or what?!
It was Raksha Bandhan today and there we were.. brothers and sisters tying rakhis to each other and well, whaddya know?! Exchanging stuff! And I got money, from which I’ll get even more stuff!
