Merepek

As ‘supposedly’ disciplined as I am with the visits to my dentist and doctor for my routine check-ups and screenings, this cannot be said of my visits to the beautician or esthetician or whatever you call them. Those were the days when I was quite regular, as in I visited them at least…. at least four times a year but the last of my visits, I cannot even recall now. It was that lonnnng ago. It’s not that I dislike pampering but I find it too time consuming and often times, after an hour and a half or so at the salon, I’d head straight home, climb onto the bed and go to snoozeland and my whole afternoon would be gone just like that. **tsk..tsk..tsk..**

So, a couple of Sundays ago, I drove around the Uptown area in PJ and my goodness, there were just so many beauty salons, slimming centres, spas and what-have-you. I parked my car and walked up to one and rang the doorbell. A young lady hurried out to open the door and I told her that I am interested to do a facial.

Young Lady : Soli, we go by appointments oni.
Me : Oh, I see. Thank you and bye-bye.

I drove around again and then eyed an inconspicuous outlet. Rang the doorbell and this time, I was in luck. They do take walk-ins and I was quickly ushered to one of the small cubicles and without further ado, the beautician got down to work on my grimy face. After an hour or so, I came out with a much cleaner and brighter face. Gua suka…. Price? Less than RM100... mmmm...reasonable enough. I was impressed; more so that they did not ‘motivate’ me to buy their whole range of skin care products. I went back for a couple more times after that and last weekend, after I was done, the lady boss offered ‘consultation’ over some warm teas. I was actually feeling very sleepy already and was dying to go home and hug my pillow, but she said it will take only 15 minutes or so. OKie, let’s get over with it.

She started by telling what other treatments the salon offers and the benefits and I thought she specifically highlighted some glowing testimonies too, and bla…bla…bla.…..Just too bad, at that moment, my brain was almost in the sleeping mode and therefore I was not fully concentrating on what she was saying at all…..bla…bla…and more bla… as she droned on. Hey! Wait a minute, I thought I heard her mentioning something like RM4200. In an instant, I awoke from my reverie…took another gulp of my now cold tea, my eyes wide open. She must have noticed the incredulous look on my face because she quickly gave a light tap on my hand and said something like not to worry and that the amount can be paid by a painless zero-interest instalment scheme and all I needed to do was to flick out my credit card and sign on the dotted line. To fork out RM4200 for some dunno-what-you-call-it-treatments and she told me not to worry! Hahahah….I took another gulp of the tea and quickly regained my composure and told her that this is some big-bucks we are talking here and I need to consult my financial planner first, said my ‘thank you’ and bade lady boss bye-bye.

Wuah….facials/beauty treatments now cost an arm and a leg and they have all these ingenious credit schemes to help you pay them in advance. Sorry, I am totally blur in this….I must have been really out of the loop for a long, long time already. As I don’t have the money to throw this way, I guess lady boss was right to a point - there is actually nothing to worry about.