The other day, I found myself inside SM-Pampanga. I had always hated going to shopping malls, this one in particular. I always had to fight off my incessant urge to buy whenever I descended into the great bowels of this beast known to many as a haven of shopping. As me and my wife found ourselves winding up and down the abyssimal depths of its insides, I constantly found myself longingly looking at the display windows we passed. Shirts…Watches…Coleman Camping gear…PDA’s…Phones…Notebook PC’s…Patio furniture… Four-poster bed…50-inch Projection TV! I was almost in a frenzied panic. Gadgets, gizmos and everything else! All under one roof! I told myself in my best Capt. Kirk voice, “Must find . . . safe place. . . to . . . hide.”

So when my wife asked that we drop by Watson’s, I hardly objected. What could a guy possibly buy in a beauty store? I was wrong to presume that! Those “buy one, get the next one for one peso” deals are irresistible. I walked away from Watson’s 5 pounds heavier, looking for another store to pillage. The shopping buzz was fueling my adrenaline.

We grabbed a quick lunch and proceeded to National Bookstore. We had an hour to kill before our movie started. We bought 4 colorful picture books for our baby. I also bought a book called The Children’s Treasury of Verse. It’s a wonderful collection of an assortment of poems with illustrations by Patricia Ludlow. My baby’s too young to enjoy it, but what the heck. I’m reading the book myself and I’m rediscovering my inner child. All those wonderful pictures…LOL!

Exhausted from containing my book buying frenzy, I whipped out the free movie passes in my wallet. I had to look away from the money in my wallet while I fished them out. We went to see LOTR (that is, Lord of The Rings to the uninitiated). It was a great movie and the cinema was devoid of people rushing to see it. That’s what I love about SM. They show movies for up to three weeks. You can catch it after all the curious folk have had their share of SRO lines. I’m a Tolkien fan myself and I abhor those long lines. It’s a sign that the corrupt capitalist movie execs are reaping-in profits from ripping off a dead author. It’s a blasphemy to behold such a sight! I would have turned over tables if I had seen those queues.

As we walked out of the cinema, I was pleased to have satisfied my appetite for destruction after watching the grand battle scene at the end of the movie. Then it hit me again! All those glamorous displays were beckoning.

To satisfy my compulsion and finally end the day, we went grocery shopping. I had to mutter a prayer when we were done. The first was to thank all the good souls who gave us gift cheques last Christmas. God Bless them all! We were able to buy what we wanted and needed for our baby thanks to those gift cheques. I whispered another prayer for God to help me carry all five of our shopping bags. He must have heard me. I didn’t feel my back ache until we got home. Argh! The beast got the best of me.