Note: The word 'fake' in the title, in no way whatsoever purports to mean another four letter word beginning with the same letter, which sounds similar to the one used, because by virtue of being decent, I always refrain from using those type of words which would effectively constitute profanity! Now continue reading the rest of the post.
So, in today's glamorous world, where everyone tries to impress everyone else with the help of those oh-so-cool brands, luxury goods manufacturers have effectively taken advantage of the situation to manipulate people's opinions to make big bucks. People wish to be known by their association with brands. "I always buy only Louis Vuitton bags/I use only Marc Jacobs/I love shopping from Gucci" and so on! Their never ending ramblings about how they manage to buy these luxury goods, even though that means that they have to starve for a week always infuriate me! "Whats in a brand after all?", I used to argue and dismiss their bragging; until I bought one such commodity myself.
My friends keep flooding social networking sites with pictures of all uber expensive branded items that they buy with their fathers' hard earned money. I always go through their posts; note what the others have to say ( but I make sure that I never comment or click like, even inadvertently). I never have understood why people are congratulated for having purchased Burberry shoes or Calvin Klein undies. One such post, however tempted me into buying an MK bag. My friend ( Ms.A) had posted about how she has a huge collection of neon coloured MK bags, and how badly she wants to expand her assemblage of expensive bags. Being too embarassed to ask her how much it cost her, I googled the price. Different sites quoted different prices, but the model that she had posted about came close to about $300. Quickly converting the amount into AED, I realized that it would overshoot my original budget by a HUGE margin. (My budget however, doesn't mean that I was going to pay for it!) To be sure that the bag would not make me shell out ANY more extra bucks, I decided that there was no harm in privately contacting Ms.A to find out how much she had paid for them. She however failed to reply, so I decided to go and find out the price from the official store. I could've rung up the store to gauge the price, but if they quoted a huge sum, I would've convinced myself NOT to splurge so much on a BAG. So the best option was to visit the store, find out the price, and walk out of the store with a heavy heart, which would prompt my dad to buy it for me! I am an evil genius! *winks*
So, I proceeded to convince my parents into getting me one, stating all the qualities of the bag that I perceived it to possess, and explained to them why no other bag would serve my needs. They gave in, and we went bag hunting the same day.
The official MK shop had a nasty surprise in store for me. It was way too pricier than I had expected it to be after almost 1.5 hours of surfing the web. There was no point in going back home empty handed, and my dad insisted that I buy a branded one, so we sheepishly walked out of the store to see what the other stores in the mall had to offer.
After checking out over 7 stores, I found out that all the other brands were even more expensive, and worse still, they came with no warranty; MK offered one year warranty.
So after pointless strolling, we again walked back into the MK store. The shopkeeper looked at us smugly and declared loudly "Welcome back sir!". As if I wanted him to acknowledge our presence! Talk about storekeepers and their sarcasm! Huh! Anyway, once we FINALLY confirmed the price with the salesman after some deliberation, and we'd ensured that it would last me for a long, long time, we proceeded to pay and I walked out of the store beaming with pride. It was my first ever branded possession; I promised the bag that I would take care of it till my last breath.
Once I came back home elated, I logged into the devious Facebook (that had caused all this fuss to begin with); not to update a status that would be something similar to "Bought my first MK bag! :D feeling happy with Ms.A and 10 others", but to see if Ms.A had replied to my message. She certainly had. It went like this:
" Hey! Nice to hear from you after long! Well, those MK bags that I had posted about, umm, well, I bought them from an online store for AED 300 (approx $90). :P Who would spend over 1000 AED on a bag? Lol! I can send you the link if you want! They have over 50 pieces that look just like genuine MK bags!! :D You can buy 4-5 bags at the price of an original one!!! ;)"
PS: Lessons learnt :-
1) NEVER, I repeat, NEVER trust ANYTHING on social networking sites. Well you can if you want to be fooled, though! This is also evident from the profile pictures on such sites that in no way bear any resemblance to the person.
2) Don't be an idiot!
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