The Change

Greenbelt, Makati is one of my favorites to hang out in, and my favorite spot there is Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Gawwd I love their English Breakfast Tea. I am a tea addict, which actually got me hospitalized one time. But that’s a different story, and I promise to write about that one day.

My friend and I was at Greenbelt one time. I was a smoker, you see. Marlboro Lights was my brand, although I have tasted the likes of Marlboro Black, Green and Red, DJ Mix (which gave me headaches every time), Capri (which I think is really classy, but felt like smoking a roll of paper with paper fillings), Gudang Garam (out of curiosity due to the myth, or fact, that it contains weed, which I later postulated actually contains chocolate. If you know what I mean.), Lucky Strike (paper), Winston (Marlboro-wannabe for me), Fortune Red (<insert vomiting sound effect>), and a single and only hit of weed which made me throw up VERY VERY badly. Won’t try that again.

BTW, this is not the story of me quitting smoking.

Anyway, I guess I didn’t have any stash of cigarettes then, because we headed to the 2nd (or 3rd) floor to buy some from a cigarette stand. It’s a nice stall because they also sell e-cigars, cool cigarette cases and lighters, and other accessories one would need to support his/her advocacy of lung cancer.

I think I bought 2 packs. I always liked to have some reserve because when I’m at my apartment, I get too lazy to go out just to buy from a nearby sari-sari store (a small variety store). One reason was there was always some ongoing construction in the area, but that wasn’t my concern. I was always bothered by (and I’m not generalizing) the construction workers whistling and saying, “Hi, miss!” or “Ganda naman!"("What a pretty sight!") or the worst “Ang laki!" ("How big!") (You know what that means.) It got to the point where instead of ignoring them, I would look straight to them and give them the finger. Lucky I didn’t get retaliating responses.

Anyhow. If I remember it correctly, a pack of Marlboro Lights from that stall costs… oh wait. I couldn’t remember. LOL. All the same, I was owed a change of P3.00. Oh… Well then now I remember a pack costed P47, and that I actually only bought a pack that instance. But I always liked to have some reserve! Oh, forget it. What matters is I was still owed a change of P3.00.

There were 2 salesladies at that stall. There were also 2 jars of candies sitting on their “office” table. To my surprise, the saleslady I transacted with asked me, “Ate, pwede bang kendi nalang yung sukli?” (“Can I just give you candies for your change?”)

Flashback to somewhere in the past, when my mother told me about her colleague (Let's name her Teacher Candy.) who paid some groceries with candies. Yup, you guessed that right. Apparently, Teacher Candy purposely kept all the "candy change" she got from the same grocery store so that when the time comes that she has an ample "amount", she swore she'd go back to the store to use the candies as payment.

It couldn't have been a bad day because my friend and I were there to enjoy and relax. It was really all out of principle. A contention. A resolve. So I answered, VERY VERY agitatedly, “So ‘pag bumili ulit ako dito sa susunod, pwede ko ding ipambayad yung kendi?” (“So if I buy from you again, can I also use the candies to pay you?”)

You can imagine my facial expression when I said those words, and perhaps you can also picture the look on that saleslady’s face. It was as if she was totally shocked that I dissented from the majority who probably only nodded just to get it over with. I’m guessing I was the first to protest.

Make what you will of this, but I will reiterate: It was out of principle.

The saleslady then gave me three one-peso coins.