“hello, mamsir—”
i walk into antas and turn left for the baskets. i already have a white tote bag, but i use the green thermoset plastic in-store baskets to prove that i'm not stealing. that way they don't notice when i steal a pack of gum, which i do every time i go here.
antas is one of the little grocery stores we have around campus. i have never been to any of the other ones. it is shaped like a right angle. the long ray of the right angle has a left side and a right side. the left side has aisles of sometimes-food like ramen noodles and corn chips and potato chips, which i love. the right side has rows of green leafy vegetables, a freezer full of meat that's already been cut up, which i don't open because it makes me sick, and cooking things like soy sauce and vinegar and laurel. the short ray of the right angle is where people pay. a row of shelves on one side of it has things that are not food like pens and paper and sanitary napkins.
there are three other people (that i can see) in antas today. it's not a big place, and the aisles are set close to each other, more like a convenience store than a proper grocery like what they have in the outside. i haven't been to the outside for years now, but i imagine they have roomier grocery stores there because they have grocery carts, and those carts need room to move. antas does not have grocery carts. they have baskets, on the left.
“wait— comrade henrie, that's right!”
— that's right.
the shopkeeper asks me something. her name is corin. what did she ask me?
do you need any help?
or something like that.
do i need any help? i know what i'm going to cook, and i usually know how much to buy when i'm cooking for myself. but this time it's for two people. how much milkfish is enough for two people?
— how much milkfish is enough for two people? i ask her back.
“are we having a date over, henrie?” she asks, smiling. she leads me over to the fish section, which is four metal trays of fresh fish, ice pellets, and lemon slices in a transparent plastic box with sliding doors.
— no, just me, i say. i don't know why she always uses the first person plural when i don't include her in any of my activities at all, except sometimes meal planning. and it's not even a date. i'm making dinner for my new flatmate.
she puts two milkfish bellies on the electronic weighing scale. “i can throw a tail bit in if you'd like,” she says.
— please don't throw it in, just put it on the scale gently.
she laughs, but i don't understand what the joke was. “of course,” she says, and i watch her as she puts the tail bit on the scale with two hands, as if it were a baby or something.
how much does that cost?
— how much does that cost?
“for you, suki, that's eighty pesos.”
i nod and watch her put the fish in a platic bag. i forgot to bring a metal tin for the fish. this isn't zero-waste. i feel bad now.
i put the plastic bag with the fish in it in my basket.
[x] milkfish
— i'm going to get some vegetables and stuff, i say, walking across to the vegetables. i get one bundle of mustasa, tied together with a yellow rubber band, with ten holes total, which i think is a safe number of holes;
[x] mustasa
one cling-foil-wrapped packet of orange miso, because the pale miso is weird even though it probably tastes the same;
[x] miso
three tomatoes, which were originally going to be five tomatoes but i figured that was maybe too much and i was getting bored of sorting through the tomatoes, looking for acceptable ones;
[x] tomatoes
two bulbs of native garlic, because they're way more flavourful than the weird big garlic;
[x] garlic
one small, purple, papery onion;
[x] onion
and put them all in the basket. i move the miso and the tomatoes on separate ends so it balances out. it doesn't balance out.
HCl, hydrogen chloride, is written on my to-do list. that means muriatic acid. i go over to the other side of antas to get a 250 mL glass bottle of muriatic acid from the bottom shelf, where all the poisonous stuff is, and put that in the basket along with the food.
the muriatic acid comes in reused beer bottles. i can tell that they're reused beer bottles because they still have the embossed name of the beer company — ginevra san miguel — across the shoulder of the bottle. whoever makes the muriatic acid just washes the label off and sticks a new one on. when i finish out a bottle of muriatic acid, i wash the label off and wash the inside of the bottle then bring the bottle to a store like i'm returning a beer bottle, and they pay me. then i buy candy.
store owners want people to return glass bottles, because they return them to the company so they can get refilled and the company doesn't have to spend money making more glass bottles. store owners want their glass bottles returned so badly that they will pay people who give them glass bottles, even if they don't remember you buying beer from them in the first place, because you don't even drink.
i stare at the neon-coloured black-ink pens (thirty pesos) while in line for checkout, and i steal a pack of gum and drop it into my bag.
i place my basket on the counter and corin looks at it and punches away at the printing calculator, which makes a whirr every time it prints another row out.
“one thirty, suki,” corin says, which means one hundred and thirty.
i hand her two hundred-peso bills and receive a fifty and a twenty in return, which is seventy, which is correct.
— thank you.
she pulls out a white plastic bag from under the counter. she always forgets that i already have a bag with me.
— i already have a bag with me, i say, showing her my bag.
she smiles and sticks the bag under the counter again. i open my bag and she places first the fish, then the mustasa, the tomatoes, the onions, and the garlic. she puts the muriatic acid in a brown paper bag before putting it in with the rest. i push the mustasa to the side so it balances out and the glass bottle of muriatic acid rests on the bottom of the bag and not on the fish or anything.
i check my list again, just to be sure.
[ ] paracetamol
[ ] 500 mL soy milk, unsweetened (red cap)
[x] HCl
[x] miso
[x] milkfish
[x] mustasa
[x] tomatoes
[x] garlic
[x] onions
i still have to go to the pharmacy. i really don't want to go to the pharmacy. i'm not going to go to the pharmacy.
“missed anything, comrade henrie?”
— no, i'm good.
i move so she can do the cashier stuff for the next person in line. there isn't anyone in line behind me, but it's still polite to move away from the cashier if you're done being cashiered to.
“i'll see you around, then. thank you!”
— i'll see you around then too, thank you.
i push the stubborn automatic-closing door, hold it open for the person who happened to be behind me, and walk out of antas.
it's only after i set my cotton tote bag of groceries down on the floor and hear my phone remind me to drink my 3 pm glass of water that i realise i've forgotten to eat lunch.
Comments (0)
See all