45-minute torture in Chennai

I walk into a hardware shop in Anna Nagar at 3.10 pm and ask the salesman for 480 inches of curtain string, a few nails and a 3-foot rod. This is how it goes:
3.10 pm
I tell the salesman my requirement. He writes them down on a piece of paper. Tells me the curtain string costs Rs 7 per metre.
3.15 pm
He is fiddling with a calculator. I ask him what the problem was. No answer. He reconfirms my requirement; goes back to the calculator
3.20 pm
Still fiddling with the calculator. I figure out he doesn't know how to convert inches to metres and that is why the confusion. I tell him I need 12 metres of string. He smiles. Calculates and tells me "Rs 84". Hands me the bill, asks me to pay.
3.30 pm
Salesman moves to where the curtain string is kept. Starts pulling out the string, cuts his finger. Alerts all his colleagues who gather around him, looking at the scratch and advising him
3.40 pm
After I ask him to hurry up, a zillion times, he tells me that he cannot find the cutter. All his colleagues again gather around him and start looking for the cutter.
3.50 pm
He finds the cutter. Gets the nails I want and asks me "what else?"
3.55 pm
He hands me the string, the nails and the 3-foot rod. He offers to keep the stuff in the car for me.
"FUCK OFF," I tell him