Harsha, Priya and I had planned for a 60km+ cycle ride on this particular Saturday. It was really long since we went cycling together. So as usual, Harsha chalked out a plan and made the route as well. In addition to cycle ride, we also had planned a shopping stop at Decathlon , a new sports related wholesale outlet, on Sarjapur road. Harsha had made a list of items to be bought at Decathlon. We were to leave at 6am in the morning from Harsha's home and take Bannerugatta-Jigani-Chandapura-Dommasandra(on Sarjapur road) and then back to BTM layout. We anyway got late and left at 6.45. With the stops for break fast and tea, by the time we reached Decathlon, it was 11am.
The first thing I did after entering Decathlon was verifying if my membership card was activated. Yes, you need to be registered member to be able to purchase at Decathlon. I was happy to see that the card was active. But I did forget to verify one more thing, which resulted in a spree of sprints, which will follow later. I was issued a new card, with my name printed on it. Unlike Metro's membership card, the Decathlon's membership card did not have photograph of the person. The Decathlon shelves were filled with lot of new goods. I was interested in some if the things like saddle cover, mud guards. I added them in to my cart. Harsha and Priya added few bags as well. We took around 1 hour for this. Even though I had not thought about buying anything from Decathlon that day, I ended up buying 4-5 items from there. This is what typically happens when I go shopping for my friends. Or this is what happens I go shopping with Harsha :D. Decathlon is really tempting! We also observed that many things like sunglasses, mud guards etcetera cost less here than the other outlets. So we ended up filling up our shopping cart with more things.
After out cart of full to the brim, we promptly went to the billing counter. Happily flashed my new membership card. Since we were not carrying any cash, we said we would pay by card. Harsha offered his card. They did accept cards, but there was a small glitch here. The credit or debit card had to be in the name of the Decathlon membership card holder! Since I had no plans of shopping that day, I had carried neither the credit card nor the debit card ! Harsha and Priya stared at me as if each of them wanted to be the first person to strangle me right then and there. I felt helpless. Then we recalled that on a last visit, we were able to make payment using non member's card. The lady(pretty?!) at the counter grinned and said, the rules had changed. Well, this lady had the same answer for anything we asked: "when was it? oh! rules have changed now!". Another girl at the counter suggested that we could go to the ATM at Sarjpur-ORR ring road junction and get the cash. We felt even more helpless now and explained her that we were on a cycling trip then. Now she offered to lend company cab to go to ATM. We happily obliged to her offer. Priya and I hopped in to the cab.
We reached HDFC ATM in 10 minutes, and were greeted by the long queue there. Spotted a State Bank ATM and ran towards it, hoping against hope that there might be a smaller queue. But it was even worse there. Came back to HDFC and stood in the queue. There were lot of stares, owing to our cycling gears. I keep mentioning about these strange stares, every now and then, please do pardon me, if you get bored. After 20 minutes of waiting in the queue, we were in the beginning of the queue, just 1 minute away from cash! To our luck, the bank personnel turned up promptly to fill up the ATM machines with cash. And the security guard shouted "after one hour!". We pleaded him to allow at least the people then in the queue to withdraw cash. After he turned down our request, we returned to Decathlon cursing him and our luck as well.
Never in my life earlier, had any of my shopping plans gone so much haywire. Now that we had no other choice, we informed the cashier to keep the things selected by aside so that we could go back later in the day and buy them. Harsha seemed to be determined to get the things on the same day at any cost. So we decided to cycle back to his home, have lunch and come back to Decathlon on motorbike or car. After all this circus, I had sprint back to home, as I was already late for an appointment. I was facing the music for same through my cellphone :D. Don't ask me more about that! I decided never to stop for shopping at Decathlon while on a cycling trip ever again. I also made a point to myself about carrying my cards where ever I may roam.
It was a indeed a 'sprint'y day!
