Men are from Mars, Women are in the Jewellery Store

What is it with women and jewellery? I'll try to be as considerate as possible here. I agree that jewels are made of precious metals or stones, and are a good investment for future economic crisis, and add a little pomp and status in society. But that is as far I can go. None of this explains to me why women need to be chloroformed and gagged and tied up to persuade them out of the vicinity of jewels.

I recently went with this lady friend of mine to a jewellery store to shop for a relative. Its not that I am at war with this particular relative, but my intention was to simply select one decent piece within the allotted budget and leave. It turned out to be much more complicated than that.

As soon as we entered this big store, my normally sane friend was totally transformed into this wide eyed, gaping dimwit. She was looking all around, taking in everything except where she was going, and I had to stick close by to make sure she didn't bump into one of those plastic models or fall down the stairs. I quickly asked my way to the ear-rings section while attributing her strange behaviour to the food we just had.

At the ear-rings section, I simply mentioned my budget and asked them to show me the choices I had. But she would hear none of it. She told me in no uncertain terms to stand back and watch, while she, with all the confidence of some jewellery merchant, took over. She looked at one piece, asked that it be taken out, studied it for a while, a long while, that is, put it at different places all over her body, held it at every possible angle from 0 to 180 (sorry for being so analytical here), and in the end simply dismissed it, asking for the next one. I almost thought this was some MTV style prank, where one tests the patience limit of another. But no, the sales girl was only too happy to get her the next piece to undergo the same rigorous scrutiny as before, piece after piece, patiently with a smile. I guess it takes one species to understand its kind. And through all this, I simply sat there trying to look important, but feeling more like a fool and doing my best not to fall asleep.

One section of ear-rings came and went, the next section came and went, and the third. By now I was convinced it was a mistake to ask for her help. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she turned around and with eyes gleaming with excitement, asked, 'Rajesh, are you sure you want ear-rings only? There aren't any good choices for selection here, Why don't we look at other ornaments?'. What? Are you kidding me? After 2 hours of painfully going through a hundred or so ear-rings, you mean to say there's no choice here? Then why in the world didn't she feel so in the very first glance, surely she didn't have to do all those stunts with the pieces to come to that conclusion. Anyway, I couldn't bear to sit there for another couple of hours going through necklaces or rings or any other piece of ornament, for that matter. Already my eyes were seeing gold and silver everywhere. I messaged one bewildered colleague to ring me(no pun intended) on my mobile, answered the call with a few loud exclamations and words like 'Emergency' and 'Oh No!' and 'I'll be right there', grabbed my jewellery merchant's hands and yanked her out of the store.

And thats the last I'll walk into a jewellery store with a woman.