By: Iris P. Concepcion
I was looking for an offbeat place yesterday, hoping to scout some bargain hunts.
I found real good ones. I kidded the vendor, I need to see the prices further reduced to my beggar's state. Bought kikiam at P5.00 late night and slept with my delivered speech.
Prior to this, while the heat of the sun was blazing in the walking horizon, I visited the La Salle area. This is the better other's cave before he got snatched by aliens to build satellites.
If I were a student, I would stay here if only for its nearby food mall. It is minimalism at its functional best.
You get American, Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Ilongo (a new continent by itself) staples. It is a fun, quirky and gregarious haven. Papa Joe's pizza is sold here and it looks like a spaceship from afar. My favorite Miguelito's dried ice-cream (P25) is likewise sold here. Bliss.
Someone outdid the minimalist concept though with a John Malkovich-like space constriction that I could no longer enter. It is an RTW store. The answer to this problem, operators, is to form a line outside like your handy ATM queue. This is under the premise that your merchandise is worth doing suicide for. If what you hang is unappetizing, why bother?
The comedy yesterday was via a mannequin standing just outside my new place. Her hair was in shambles, teeth chopped and nose cracked. I told the sales lady she looked awful. Even the vendor saw the gag and smiled with me.
I saw notebooks priced at P16.00 with beautiful covers. Taglines like "Robots made this notebook" are on the front with my entry title embossed in writing pads.
The National Bookstore here is likewise small. Gorgeous as it emits guffaws if you are in the loop. I saw a scrapbook of kids that eerily surprised me with electrifying pictures. Fronting the MAC ART HUR book.
A five-leaf notebook includes freebies. A huge pencil marker. And the eureka: White Pond's cream. This, at P99.00.
I am not advertising but the whole point to this narrative is how people deserve a laugh when they part their money with businessmen. It is good karma.
The previously staid outlets are now opening up to these bubbly gizmos that turned purchasing power into Saturday Night Live Presents.
The bakery has a fatman sitting on a bowl with his butt exposed. Beside the most delicious pastries you'd see in the universe. Yummy. Paco public market is getting a facelift and it looks like a hotel-museum from the outside.
Fun?
As it should be. As they ought to be. Then, we would not mind paying our taxes since we got entertainment on the side while improving the plight of men and women.
P.S.
I can't resist writing this. Beside my new surroundings is a bible store with curious spiritual books. Scriptures are defined by authors like Mary Baker Eddy, along with a tagline: "Who Is Mary Baker Eddy?"
The answer is in the clothes line with the book title: "Wiser Than The Serpent."
Funny as hell even if you have Health and Science biblical studies conducted here. It looks ghostly from the outside. But the books rock. See them.
Where I am staying, Cosmic Anthropology classes are offered. I have not seen a spaceship still. I just close the unattended faucets since water runs deep over here.