Sunday, September 16, 2007

Playing Along

This happened some months back. I was visiting Sapna Bookstores at Jayanagar. I had been to their Majestic store the day before and had collected a gift (CD Case) from there on the puchase of 1000/-. Now here again I purchased books worth 1000/- and approached the "gift" counter. Since I already had the CD case I wanted something else, a tupperware container. But this was a lower gift, for 750/-.

I approached the man at the counter and pointed out the tupperware to him. He smilingly corrected me and said that I was entitled to a FREE CD Case for 1000/-, the tupperware being for "lesser" customers. I said I still wanted the tupperware. At this he was aghast, here was a perfectly sane looking, educated guy who was refusing a FREE gift and instead wanted a lesser priced one!!! He tried to explain the scheme to me again.

Now I realised I had shaken the very foundations of this human and decided to play along. I acted as if it was "now" that I understood how the scheme worked and gracefully accepted the CD Case. I thanked him profusely from having had made a profound error. I still remember his smiling face, his faith in humanity restored.