THE mind is a strange thing. On Sunday, that mind was already bent on going to a particular store which gave me some kind of a membership card once upon a time.
But it was only when I was already inside that store on Monday morning that I remembered the card. Which I forgot to bring. And there was the sales staff informing me that I’d get a huge discount if I had that card. So, I went back home to look for the card. This required traveling from downtown to uptown Cagayan de Oro right after traveling from uptown to downtown CDO since that store was my first errand venue for the day.
But on my way to the uptown area, I had to stop by some place for another errand. I joked that if ever this was how my Monday would be, I’d end up forgetting about the first errand, for which I had already found the membership card that the discount required.
Monday blues? More like dangerous-heat-index-level blues. While students were staying home since there were no classes on Monday, thanks—or no thanks, depending on a student’s point of view—to the hot weather, I was outside juggling anything and everything, dealing with life as it happened.
But did students stay home that day? Of course not. It was vacation time. Long weekend pa more. If there were no classes on Saturday, the long weekend would last for five days, giving them enough time to even go abroad, preferably to countries that have spring.
So much ado about climate change. But it’s not for nothing as proven by the current hot weather.
Each time there’s a heatwave in the U.S., people there would cook eggs in the sun and even bake cookies in that sun. A phenomenon! And that same phenomenon is now happening in CDO. This could be a blessing in disguise as liquefied petroleum gas prices skyrocket to infinity and beyond.
Go to the beach then to cool down while grilling some fish and pork belly—no LPG required.
Yesterday, I decided to cool down at a downtown mall. I arrived there at 9:33 am after accomplishing the first errand for the day at another venue. I would have preferred to stay home and read a book since it was a holiday. But duty calls. Kind of.
Malls should consider opening at 9 am since there were many people already waiting outside by the time I arrived there. I thought Starbucks would open earlier than the mall’s 10 am sked, having coffee there while waiting for the mall to open would be a yummy treat, but no such luck. So II started writing this column instead.
By the time the mall guard appeared at the entrance, people began to line up. But I was still writing this. Gotta take advantage of precious time. The mall won’t go away, anyway.
And then, the mall’s theme song started playing, and the guards opened the entrance door. It’s the start of a new shopping day.
And here’s the pleasant surprise: some of the department store’s guards and staff were at the store’s entrance greeting the early birds. Cute!
