Friday shopping

Posted by Lianne Gutcher at 14:29 on 19 Feb 2010

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Friday. The Kabul worker's day of rest. For most of us, our only day of rest because we work six-day weeks.



The recreational options are limited: brunch, carpet or headscarf shopping, or perhaps a walk along the walls of the ancient fortress. The mines have mostly been cleared and no one has been sniped at for ages though a feral child got me with a rock and a slingshot once. It bloody hurt, I can tell you.



The other option is a trip to Kabul City Centre - the town's only mall. Here you can shop for $2 pirated DVDs (you learn very quickly to ask whether it's a video-of-the-cinema-screen copy (bad) or an awards copy (excellent). I know, I know, I am not even going to get into the ethics of this), admire the very slutty shoes, and buy cosmetics.



Not so long ago BF1 and I went to City Centre to look for mascara. 



The day's first highlight was stumbling across Boots Mushroom shower gel. 



The bottled brown goo was unattractive enough but the pictured spores growing in a field were downright off-putting.



Seriously, who wants to smell like fungus?



"What was Boots thinking?" BF1 demanded to know. "Who in marketing would ever imagine anything mushroom-scented would be a good idea? I bet that dude's ass got fired."



"Wait, no," I said. "It really doesn't smell that bad." Deep inhalation ensues. "Oh, no, hold on. You need a few sniffs before the earthy undertones really start to come through."



On to the cosmetics counter. Amongst the various brands, many specious, I found Maybelline WonderCurl Mascara which I bought immediately. Then I spied a Mac mascara. I asked the sales assistant if I could examine the wand. 

He ceremoniously unscrewed the top and proceeded to demonstrate the mascara by applying it to his not inconsiderable arm hair. It curled beautifully. I was so stunned by this singular sales technique that I went ahead and bought the mascara anyway.



"I can't believe you just bought that after that guy tested it on his arm," BF1 said. 



"I know," I said. "It's going straight in the bin when I get home." The trash is also where the Maybelline went after I discovered it was, in fact, electric blue. Blue mascara is something I have shied away from, quite sensibly I believe, since the experimental teenage years.  



The other product that attracts a lot of attention - male and female - though very few buyers, is the Queeen Love Breast Enlarging Cream that can be found at Finest supermarket.

"I wonder if it works," mused the Young, Good-Looking, Privileged author in town to research his latest novel just before christmas. 



I care not a whit whether it works. I have a Plan B. I had an encounter with a plastic surgeon in town to do humanitarian cleft palate work on kids. He  promised me that he would totally sort me out with his T&A colleagues should I decide a boob job was ever an option I wanted to explore. 



"You should totally consider it," he told me. "Just make sure" and, girls, this is a piece of advice I pass on absolutely gratis, "just make sure you go for silicone, not saline." 



You really do meet all types here. He was also a creationist and told me I was going to burn in hell. But that's another story.

Finest also stocks vaginal lubricant jelly that comes in "Honey and Chilli" variety.

"Wow. It sticks and it burns?" wondered New York Gal who was telling me about this.

Just like phosphorous and napalm. 

A few weeks later, it was BF1's birthday and I just had to get her the mushroom shower gel.



"Aaarg," she shrieked upon tearing off the wrapping paper. "I am SO re-gifting this."



The mushroom shower gel now sits in the Kabul bathroom of one of the UK media's finest foreign correspondents. It nestles up against his  flatmate's own preferred brand: Night Attack.

Wrong on so many levels.

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