Me, Minimarket & Calculator

Did you ever go to a minimarket while bringing a calculator? Then, you used the calculator to counting how much prices of item that you will buy so you can make sure that your money is enough to pay it all?

If you ask me, I will say loudly, “Yes, I did!”

I forget about when I had experienced that or when it was happened exactly.  If I’m not mistaken, I did ever it when I was 8 or maybe 9 years old. Sure, I was so young at the time.

So, let me tell the story. This is one of my personal experience that I had ever experienced. When I was kid, I had ever dreamt about what happen if I go to a minimarket and buy some items independently there. I thought it would be fun and it would be unforgettable moment for me. Therefore, I invited my friend to make it happen together. I forgot about what I thought at the past. But maybe I thought that it would be better if I didn’t go alone and it would be better too if there was a friend who accompanied me. That’s why I invited my friend.

Unfortunately, a problem came to us. The question was, “How I can go shopping there if I have no much money?” To answer this problem, my friend and I tried to found solution. Aha! Like animation, suddenly lamp lighted on my head and it was sign of I found the solution. I thought, “Why my friend and I don’t collect our pocket money so we can go shopping?”


Since then, each of us felt motivated to collecting money. Most of them came from our pocket money. We collected it one by one. I didn’t know how much money that we collected exactly. But after we got some money (I mean not much), the next step that we do is we chose to went to a minimarket. For your information, because at the time existence of minimarket was still rare, there was just alfamart nearby my house. So, when afternoon came, we went there confidently. The most important is to anticipating shortage costs we brought ‘a magical thing’. You know what I mean? Yeah, it was a calculator!

Briefly, my friend and I arrived there. “Finally, both of us would buy some items independently, without parents guide!”, we said happily. Then, we paid attention to what item that we wanted to buy. All of them were food. At the time, it was funny and maybe one of my embarrassing experiences that I had experienced. Why not? At that poin, soon after we arrived, we divided our tasks each other. While I was counting price for the sake of price from items that we wanted to buy, my friend kept me from other people. My friend was also covered myself and gave me clue whether another customer approached to us or not. We did it to anticipating that there’s no people will catch two little kid who played with a calculator in a minimarket.

At the first, the process ran smooth. I could count one by one of item on the shopping list and we didn’t get anything problem. Unfortunately, our hope isn’t good as reality. Soon, a woman or we called her as “mbak-mbak” caught us nearby a rack. Looking there are two kids were in minimarket while counting the amount of price, she laughed. She felt that what we did was funny. In Indonesian, she said, “Yah… ketauan pake kalkulator! Malu deh.”

After we get caught, we eschewed from her as soon as possible because we felt embarrassing. Did bring a calculator is a bad idea for children in go shopping? On the contrary, if we didn’t bring it, how if our money is not enough to pay what we wanted to buy? Would we felt more embarrassing? We thought hard.

Without caring about what was her expression and what she reacted to us, we went to cashier and bought some items. Magical! The event made us forgetting about a calculator and counted items how if our money isn’t good enough to pay. At the time we thought that the important thing that we had to is avoid the woman and go home as soon as possible. Soon, we went out and after that we chose to go home. Uniquely, when I was walking my house, my friend said to me, “Our house couldn’t reached by turning left, right?” It does mean that I almost forget about how to get my house. Luckily, my friend reminded me so we can go home.

Since then, I learned that don’t bring calculator any more if you want to count price. But now, use your HP to count the prices.(*)

NB : This writing is written for writing mid-test.

Comments