MEDIUM RARE

Don’t own an ancestral home back in the ol’ probinsiya? No beach lonely enough to be privately yours and yours alone? Ergo, no reason to join the hoi-polloi on the car trip down NLEX or SLEX, no incentive to take the provincial bus, overcrowded boat, wait four to five hours to board a plane?

Congratulations, you chose to stay Metro Manila-bound and show your true colors as a street-smart Metizen of the megapolis who’d rather spend hours crawling at the mall to kill time, enjoy your own company, spend a bit of money on coffee and snacks, even indulge in some impulse buying. If the city was emptied out Saturday, Sunday and yesterday, was it by “Undas” and the barangay-BSKE elections? I have no data but it felt like anybody who was not at the cemetery or memorial park was at the mall. Everybody was malling, their babies and their dogs, their shopping bags.

From “jologs” Divisoria all the way to Makati’s land of uppity malls, from 168 in Chinatown to Rustan’s where its twinkling tinsel town has advanced the waiting-for-Christmas calendar, the scene was commercially encouraging, one that bespoke an eager-to-spend prosperity on payday weekend. The spirit of Christmas was everywhere, ahead of All Saints Day.

At 168, Penny bought 12 pairs of reading glasses, and why not, if they cost P20 a pair? Pat-P hoarded a ton of clothespins, hangers, garbage bags, dishwashing liquid, etc. to last her ‘til 2024.  A teenager was haggling with a salesgirl over a set of brass knuckles. At 168, my motto is “buy whatever’s pretty even if useless,” such as jars of scented candles painted in rainbow hues, mandala-inspired.   

As soon as Divisoria felt claustrophobic, the next day was a good time to move on and upward to Makati. And what great “finds”! A just-opened shop at Glorietta selling goods from Copenhagen, called Flying Tiger, catering to young customers. At Rustan’s, the store whose very air smells expensive and self-assured, the happiest discovery was that silk scarves designed by a Filipino artist, Mischel Ocier Mendoza – who has given them names like “Tala,” “Diwata,” “Bahay Kubo”—are proudly made in the PH, displayed and priced the same as those from Europe. You’re a star, Mischel!