wow, mali!

a certain friend of mine [let's call him 'jerry'] asked me yesterday to accompany him to glorietta, where he would be purchasing a few articles of clothing before a weekend in corregidor and a business trip to singapore right after. having nothing much to do that particular night before my parents would pick me up from work, i replied affirmatively, although i usually find shopping a chore. i figured that although i would rather do a large number of things instead, updating this blog was not one of them. alas, hindsight, where were you in my hour of need?

anyway, we went to the landmark, where he proceeded to direct me towards the men's underfashion department. now there's a showstopper if there ever was one. here i was thinking he was after jackets, a couple of ties, hell, maybe even a pair of shoes. instead, i found myself knee-deep in elastic, white-cotton shit. at that point in time, i thought it best to confirm my rising suspicions.

upon asking what our business in that particular section of the department store was, and receiving the answer that we were, in fact, questing for undergarments, i began to find some way of extricating myself from said situation. first off, i stated, i was by defintion a somebody else, and as such was not an ideal companion for such a purchase, since they are usually done sans others; and secondly, i had for the past few years been wearing boxers, even [especially] at home, and therefore had limited knowledge of the why's and wherefore's of close-fitting underpants. in conclusion, i had neither reason nor willingness to be there and as such i would be going now see you tomorrow ok bye.

well, apparantly poor jerry had no prior experience in shopping of any sort [thus, leaving him to his own wits would be tantamount to homicide by neglect] so i finally gave in to being on standby while he attempted to pick out briefs in his size. at one point i discovered that he had been "trying out" the ones he had favored by stretching them over his groin, much to the dismay of passers-by. i quietly pointed out that such methods are often frowned upon in public, prompting him to inquire about the methods that aren't. i replied "tantsahin mo na lang", which in the vernacular corresponds to "just estimate it".

unfortunately, that phrase has an additional, lesser-known meaning, somewhat akin to "just measure it out", which was, equally unfortunately, the definition jerry thought to adopt, which he carried out by wrapping the articles of clothing around his neck, in much the same method as that by which pants are "fitted". by this time, whatever thin layer of dignity i had managed to hold onto upon entering that cursed ground now lay irrepairably torn amid the gartery, cottony trapezoids that littered the varnished wooden floor. the saleslady had been regarding us with some amusement for the past ten minutes, and was now looking at me as if this travesty was somehow my fault; i somehow found the strength to quip "boyfriend ko. foreigner."

what else was i supposed to do?

by the time we were through with the underfashion excursion, i was thoroughly ready to part ways with dear jerry. but i still had a good hour to kill, and jerry promised that he was done with unmentionables, so i saw no harm in walking him through a few polo shirts. hey, i thought, what more could happen?

let us step back for a second and examine that statement. by taking a page from the great philosophers of yore, one could surmise that so long as all the atoms in the universe do not simultaneously freeze, anything can happen. and this anything is not guaranteed to be a good anything. in fact, due to the predispositions towards increased entropy, this anything is more likely to be a bad anything. and in my case, this bad anything turned out to be jerry recognizing the words "dressing room" without recognizing the words "door", "shut", and "lock". end result: for the second time in the last 30 minutes, the late-night shoppers at the landmark were treated to a rather extraordinary occurrence.

and as also for the second time in the last 30 minutes, i was bent over, hunting for my ego among the ruins of past fabrics, the saleslady [a different one this time] was looking at me for answers. i ventured to ask how often this type of scenario manifested itself, and she responded "'pag foreigner lang".

well, you know what i said next.

sige ingat.ü 
posted by stani at 2:17 PM