Lately I find myself dragging B along to the nearest Office Warehouse (which happens to be in Paseo Center here in Makati) and purchasing some useful/useless stuff: a stapler and a box of staple wire, an efficient pair of scissors (How do you guage efficiency? I rely on pricier versions of the same stuff), and a medium-sized Tisyu in its graffiti-inscribed box. I’m yet to have a sincere talk with myself for this recent inclination to buy office desk items, and I find very little comfort in the fact that I contribute to this world’s pro-clutter drive. And now I call to mind some actual humans I hate, those who think colorful coasters are the end-all in life, and refuse to think of myself as fast turning into someone like them.
A melange of useful/useless things on my work desk.
Last Saturday I finally got to visit Saizen, the newest store in the tradition of Daiso and Japan Home Center (I read Chuvaness; she said the former cannot enter the local market because the name has been pilfered and is already being used here). B and I were in total awe of the many, many useful/useless stuff a single store can handle; there were striped socks, scarves, hairpins, tumblers, grass mats, kiddie balloons, bakeware, stationery, artificial plants and hundreds of other items sold for P85 each. So yes, I gave in; I got myself the pink-and-white woven basket, a black wooden bracelet, a huge bottle of wet wipes, a pink cigarette case to double as an mp3 player pouch, and two trade paperback containers that can protect my prized possessions from dust and human intervention.
I personally think that it’s my own loony bin; aside from the Hersheys and Cadbury shelves in the grocery, “hakot” stores such as this one serves as the ultimate test to the perplexity that is impulse buying.
Side note: B regarded Japan Home Center, which was about three stores away from Saizen at Robinson’s Galleria, as if it were some stray cat. “Kawawa naman yun. Walang katao-tao.” And true enough, no one would give it the time of the day, even if some of its wares were marked down to P55 and P66. Aside from Saizen’s much bigger floor area, blame that concept called advertising: even Rob’s escalator walls were plastered with some cutesy Japanese character proposing a good time at the new brand in town. Nilamon sila ng bongga.
So, there. The point of this post, really (if I can still salvage it) is that I went shopping with B last Saturday and went home a couple of thousands poorer, and now I’m doing bulakbol on a Monday afternoon here in my little haven along Valero Street. I’ve already dozed off a thousand times after today’s hearty pizza lunch.
