Window Shopping Therapy

Edmund went out for some errands around noon. Oyen went out with her friend. Nyke went to his friend’s house.

I called up my sister. The line was on and off so we decided to hang up.

I was bored today and needed to release some frustrations.
I sensed that streets could be open so I ventured out to Greenbelt 5 for a much needed shopping therapy.

I tried on a dress at Zara. Or tried to try on a dress. The size medium got stuck between my head and my neck. It had no zipper or any opening of some sort.

Assuming that the neckline opening is big enough to slip through my head, the linen material would have been creased and the dress would no longer look clean and crisp before I could even go out of my dressing room.

My feet brought me next to the Chopard boutique. The sales lady recognized me– the uzi, usisera woman. “May I see that. That one also. Eh this one too”. I tried on one, two, three, four, five watches and I liked all of them. When a customer likes everything in your store, for sure, she’s not buying anything. Every time she showed me the tag price, I would say “ang mahal naman”.

My last stop was at the small Rolex store on the same floor. That’s the same store stormed by organized robbers on October 18, 2009.

There were 4 customers seated inside when I walked in today at 6 pm. I just wanted to ask for the price of the item on the display window but the three sales ladies were all busy attending to the customers.

One guy (around 60) was on the phone with a credit card call center. He wanted to buy a stainless steel men’s watch but his credit card was disapproved. He was trying to convince the person on the other line to approve his card.
He was out of his mind. His card has a remaining balance of P185,000 as of today and has an overdue account with the credit card company. He wanted to bring home a Rolex watch worth half a million pesos. I overheard him promising the card company that he would pay his overdue balance tomorrow. He even said that he’s been a loyal client of the card company since 1995. Banks don’t give a shit even if you’ve been their client since Rogelio dela Rosa days. All they care about is to get paid.

When he couldn’t get his way with the credit card company, he tried to convince naman the sales lady. There’s no way a watch store would part with their watch with a P185,000 payment for a half million watch. Walang-ganun. The guy left the store empty handed. Nice try.

I waited for several minutes because the sales lady took a long time looking for the correct product number and price from their album. The woman customer became curious, she stood up and looked at the item on the window. She asked the sales lady why it’s priced like that. Then she looked at me from head to toe. She was sizing me up. Probably wondering who this woman is, na ang tapang ng sikmurang magtanong kung magkano. Hindi nya ako kilala, hindi lang matapang ang sikmura ko. Makapal pa ang mukha ko. Tingin lang naman, Tanong lang naman. Stores would rather have someone come and appreciate their merchandise even without buying rather than mapanis sila maghapon ni walang papasok na mag-usyoso.

Omb——‘Miss, kailan mag re-reduce ng price ang Rolex? Kasi nag drop ang euro”.
Sales lady—“Hindi mam nagbababa ng presyo ang Rolex, puro pataas lang. Hindi pa nangyari yun”.

Nice try.