A Shopper's Nightmare!

"They're going to open Hypermart in BIP," my Mom told me the other day. I wasn't particularly interested nor impressed. But when she added, "They sell 2 liters of cooking oil for 8500 rupiahs." she didn't need to ask me twice whether I'd come or not.

So we came. And it was hell, we--wait, I was going too fast. I'd better start at the very beginning.

At first my parents and I found it difficult to find a vacant parking lot. We almost took a wrong turn (for some reasons that only a Noble-prize winner might fathom, they decided to switch the entrance--what used to the entrance has changed into the exit and vice versa). Then it took at least half an hour to get a space. We finally parked at Basement 2--the lowest floor. Then we had to climb the steep stairs (Mom wisely suggested us to take the lift, unfortunately a wide gap/hole has replaced it) for about, well, let's say, eternity. Then we had to walk roundabout to find the famous Hypermart.

And boy! It was packed! A woman literally shoved me because she wanted to take the trolley from me. I decided to give in--this was definitely not the place for open aggression. We had to queue for many minutes before we could enter the mart. My mom and I decided to grab the essentials and head straight to the cashier--me two pouches of oil and four Oilum soap, her--two pouches of oil and a pack of ready-made lumpiah skin. Another thirty minutes (maybe more) passed.

Not finished yet with our shopping, mom and I decided to go to Yogya and dad to BEC. Yogya was full of people. We ended up leaving as soon as we could, forgetting that we were supposed to get some freebies from the products we bought. Oh well.

Went to Gunung Agung. Bought my book, a friend of mine asked me to do that. And the book store had the nerve to increase the price! I asked one of editors I know in Gramedia Pustaka Utama and she confirmed my suspicion: that GPU didn't raise the price of my book.

Then it took about fifteen minutes at the soonest to leave the parking lot.

What a tiring, wrinkle-maker experience.

I don't think I'll go to BIP again... not in the near future, at least!