BUY MORE, YOU MOR(E)ON

Handing me the confectionery with a toothy grin, the storekeeper wisecracked: "while you savour this cake with jam filling, sir, its sticky bits get jammed between your teeth and give your molars free filling, necessitating a versatile toothbrush. I've got just the right brush!"

He was manipulating me for additional business by linking the cake to the toothbrush. Bristling with defiance at his ploy and yet unwilling to brush him off, I bit the bait not so much for the brand's promise at removing the 'jammed bits of cake', as for my failure to replace my worn-out toothbrush that was beginning to resemble a chrysanthemum.

Honestly, I have been charitable towards sales persons resorting to legitimate sales drive provided they didn't go into over-drive. Something akin to that happened at a departmental store where, as I asked for a box of candles(blast the power-cuts!), the sales clerk tried to smooth-talk me into acquiring a power inverter. He was the kind who, if you purchase a padlock, would try to ram down your throat a flashlight, a crowbar and a nylon cord - all to tackle the burglar in case of a break-in!

At an out-of-the-town drug store recently, as I paid for a few strips of anti-diabetic tablets, the chemist asked, "Wouldn't you need some co-enzymes as an adjunct?" Pleading ignorance, I begged for enlightenment.

"You see, the co-enzymes," said the chemist flaunting his erudition, "stimulate carbohydrate metabolism at the cellular level."

"But aren't you referring to thiamine and pyridoxine, commonly called B-complex factors?" I queried, seeing through his little game.

"Well...... that really is the case," said the chemist a bit rattled, "but where did you get this dope?"

"From my professor of therapeutics at the college where I studied medicine," I replied truthfully, watching his face turn red, then purple and finally ashen. I had just encountered a hard-boiled yet half-baked charlatan of a chemist who, without batting an eyelid, would endeavour to 'dispense' foam mattresses, feeding bottles and nappies to the buyers of fertility pills.

At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the agents for long-distance night coaches plying dacoit infested routes put together a package deal consisting of, besides the tickets, helmets, knives and first-aid kits. Or, if you could afford, a revolver - Smith & Wesson, perhaps?

Sales Pitch:

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I ignored his shenanigans, as long as he stuck his tongue out at me from behind the thickets. But when the slimy little creep paid a domiciliary visit to my domain and parked himself in my parlour claiming tenancy rights, I pressed the panic button. And the squatter was beyond the long arm of the law since he belonged to the slippery class of reptilians, or, simply put, he was a snake.
So, things came to a head when I was jolted out of my bed by the bedlam that had broken out at home. A creepy-crawly had made his maiden guest appearance at my house and holed up under a sofa attracting an assembly of nosy couch potatoes from our vicinity who were debating on the pedigree of the colubrine caller. While there was' a broad consensus about the NRI (non-resident intruder) being a rat-snake, one Robin Hood in our neighborhood testified that he distinctly saw the snake's hood. And when my appeal to the enlightened conclave of self-styled ophiologists to ‘do a Whitaker' on the snake found few takers, I signed up a professional snake-catcher to evict the errant tenant.
The snake-catcher, a stern looking chap purportedly endowed with a 'garuda rekha' ( a line) on his palm that could urge the most belligerent among the snakes to throw in the towel without much hiss, came with his paraphernalia consisting of a stick and a gunny sack. He opened the proceedings by giving the snake a piece of his mind in a strange 'hiss-panic' tongue - or rather, while he hissed at his quarry, the snake panicked. After a while, unable to defy his marching orders, the reptile dutifully ducked into the sack. And having picked up his cargo, the snake-catcher left richer by a hundred rupees.
Within weeks, the serpent resurfaced on my domestic stage as if to take his curtain-call. And then again after sometime to give an enthusiastic encore. Then he went on to showcase his hisstrionics almost on a monthly basis keeping the snake-catcher's hands (and his wallet) full.
The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel came when a friend tipped me off about the snake-catcher who, it seemed, was a confidence trickster adept at turning his gullible clients into milch-cows by periodically planting the snakes in their premises. It was a case of recycled reptile catered to a renewable clientele.
The last time the snake popped in for a snooze, I let him unwind in peace and then find his way out into the thickets whence he came. Nowadays, whenever our paths cross, I give him the right of way. He sticks his tongue out at me as he passes on and I thumb my nose at him. And the rest, as they say, is hiss-story.

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