Ugly shoppers

There is a breed of people living in Singapore that frightens me. After running some errands at the mall yesterday, I decided to buy some fresh lychees at Giant Superstore. Luckily, the lychees were on offer.

Some middle-aged women were crowding around the lychee section, rifling through the large pile, choosing and plucking the best ones. If you're not familiar with lychee, they come in a bunch like this:

The ones in season aren't that good looking, so they were cherry-picking the best. It's a really bad practice if you ask me. They pluck the ripest ones out from the branch and leave a mess. Other fruit vendors would never allow this. The same scene was happening at the mangosteen section.

I stood there looking at a pile of miserable left-overs. Suddenly someone announced that the mangoes were on special offer. Two storekeepers arrived with boxes of fresh mangoes but before they could unload, hordes of people scurried from all corners, shoving and stretching their hands as if the mangoes were free.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I can only imagine that while we're sitting at the office, there is a bunch of people who spend hours scouring, pushing and shoving to grab the best deals at Giant.