Market Madness

"This is a mistake," I said to myself for the twentieth time. Instead of being safely home sound asleep (or more likely, reading or watching Youtube) at this hour, I was crammed into Victoria Park with thousands of other unwise shoppers. After all, the best prices at the Chinese New Year Market could be had at 3 in the morning the night before the first day of CNY. Or so I had been told. As I scanned the endless crowds and frenzied salespeople, I was starting to have my doubts. 

Shuffling forward slowly, trying to dodge the metal spikes on my neighbor's leather jacket, I eyed the booths on both sides of the large aisle. Not that it mattered, since the crush of the people made it impossible to cross over to the other side even if I did see something I liked, but I had to look anyway. What if I chose the wrong side?

A few days before, I'd come to the park in the early afternoon to scout out the best products. Most of the booths were manned by eager students selling products they had designed and ordered themselves. Giant stuffed animals (lots of sheep to match the year), tote bags with jokes in Chinese, colorful stickers, poop emoji pillows, and all manner or wares filled the tables or were waved in the air by shouting students. I loved the stuffed food items. Huge egg tarts, hot dogs, barbecue pork buns, pizza slices. Who doesn't want a pizza slice the size of a beach towel? It's cuddly too.

Of all the unique products I scouted out, one caught my eye. I wasn't quite sure what it was. It looked like a square, gray mouse with beady black eyes and floppy ears yet it lacked the tail and pointy nose of a mouse. The attending student picked up on my interest and helpfully pointed out the large holes on its sides. Ohhhh, it was a handwarmer! Although cute, I wasn't sold. My shoebox flat didn't need another stuffed animal, even if it did double as a muff. But then, the student turned my attention to the zipper running horizontally across the mouse-creature's neck like zombie stitching. What was that? A hidden blanket? 

The temperature had just taken a dive, and I was in the market for a new blanket. I eyed the mouse-creature-box-thing, ready to take it home. But something stopped me. Just the day before someone told me that I needed to wait until CNY eve to do my shopping. They said that since it was the last night, vendors slashed prices to get rid of unsold goods. The best deals could be found in the wee hours of the morning. So I tore myself away and swore to return. 

And that's how I found myself at the most boring concert imaginable wondering if I'd ever get out of the park without passing out, much less see the mouse-creature again. My eyes wandered up and down the booths, searching. Had I picked the right side? 

Much to my dismay, there was no visible price slashing going on. Prices were pretty much the same as when I had stopped by during the spectacularly uncrowded afternoon. In fact, the students seemed to be working themselves into a frenzy as they danced around the booth, waved products in the air, screamed into megaphones, and tried to coerce customers to take a look. They were not in a bargaining mood. 

Two hours in and I was starting to lose heart. Two and a half rows and no mouse-creature in sight. But then, just as I was contemplating sneaking out the side, I saw it! In my mind I ran up to the booth and wrapped my arms around my long-lost mouse-creature. In reality, I impatiently shuffled behind a flock of giggling teens that were more worried about taking selfies than about moving forward. 

As soon as I got to the booth, I whipped out my wallet and shoved money into someone's hand before they even had the chance to say "happy new year." Clutching my prize, I hightailed it out of the market grounds as fast as I could. Meaning it still took me forty minutes to reach the exit and then another thirty to walk home. 

The moral of this story is don't trust your friend if they tell you about a really good deal that they are not participating in ("Yeah, 3:00am is a great time to go shopping"). At least I still have my cute little box mouse. I can use the handwarmers and blanket anytime I want! So useful. Now if only winter would last a bit longer then I'd have more of a chance to use it.