My latest affliction....

"We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops."
-- Henny Youngman

I do not remember when exactly the symptoms crept on me but sure the diagnosis caught me unawares. On hearing my latest affliction, I did run the full gamut of the emotions as postulated by Kubler-Ross : denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I lasted a bit longer in the denial phase arguing that the symptoms were perhaps temporary in nature and would pass soon. But little did I know then it was a condition to stay.

The medical term for my condition would be "sale-philia".......more colloquially, the lingo in use would be "sale-fever". Increased palpitations, feverish gleam almost bordering on manic proportions, at times sale induced catatonia are few of the symptoms that the placard "sales" in retail shops induce in me. However I have heard of people affected more severely and in some cases the behaviour of the crowd that throng a sales can become unpredictable, sometimes inciting mob frenzy as well.

Despite its roots shared with its more severe sibling condition "shopaholic syndrome" aka "retail therapy syndrome", I was relieved to hear that my condition is less grave and is sometimes seasonal. The medical team is still baffled as to whether this condition could be genetic, but apparently it looks like the case atleast with my mom and I. However the experts in the profession gravely state that despite its non malignant nature, sale-fever is widespread in occurrence, affecting both gender but mostly women regardless of age, background and financial status.

I also learnt that this condition, though disabling the rationale and sensible section of the brain temporarily throwing the victim into a sale-induced stupor, it also, in some cases, enhances the grey cells in some women to learn the other language equivalent of the word "sales". Sadly, I can corroborate with this fact, as during my 5 months stay in Italy, one of the few words that I managed to learn was "saldi"......of course one would know what it stands for when reading this post. Likewise my mom, despite her staunch refusal in learning the Queen's language, can, easily and correctly without anybody's help, pick out the word "sales" with her rather sharply tuned retail antennae.

Well, as with major afflictions, this life-style threatening condition also has its support groups. Usually victims gather at these meetings with full of remorse over their latest forays into bargain sales but not before proudly displaying their acquisitions still complete with their tags displaying their discounted prices. Despite the numerous vows and painful reminders of the long list of credit card expenses blacklisting their name, most of us are repeat offenders still struggling to break out of this condition. Meanwhile not just the spouses complain, but even our closets do trying to contain all our purchases.

PS: This post was written in remorse as a self-flagellation act after yet again spending (3 times just this week alone and it is not even mid-week yet) my hard earned lentil sorting money on stuff that I most definitely do not need. Er, having said this, I still have a few sales to check out the remaining week.