La cage aux folles

TRUE story.

It takes place sometime 2003. Missus of a ranking government official goes to Pampanga to have some wooden furniture made. She orders furniture amounting to about P105,000. She tries to persuade shop owner to thrown in a freebie. Missus has her eye on a bird cage to keep her precious Brazilian birds. (Hwaw! Soozy! If I know, stone bird lang 'yan haha!)

Anyway, deal is closed, Missus hands over P50,000 to shop owner as downpayment for her merchandise. Soon has the furniture delivered to government official's house in Alabang. Government official was moving abroad, so Missus had the shop owners' delivery boys load up a container van the newly-delivered furniture, which include complete dining furniture and a living room set.

After the new furniture was loaded into the container, Missus asked same delivery boys to load other personal items from the family home into the container. (Ava ava ava gardner! ginawang utusan ang mga delivery boys!) The boys followed and loaded up the Missus' other family stuff into the container.

Tired and sweaty from all that heavy lifting, the delivery boys asked Missus if they could get a drink of water. Missus led them into the garden and told them to drink from the garden hose. (Josh! Wala man lang baso ateh? But why?) She didn't even bother to give the boys a tip for doing the work of movers.

Before the delivery boys left, they asked Missus for the rest of the payment. She had a balance of something like P55,000. Missus hands over a check for P50,000 instead, telling the delivery boys, "Sabihin nyo sa amo nyo tawad na yung P5,000 (tell your boss to give me a P5,000 discount)."

Since their instructions were to receive P55,000, one of the delivery boys called the shop owner, so she and Missus would talk. Shop owner pleads with Missus to give the full amount as the latter had promised, telling her: "Ma'am bakit naman ho kayo ganyan? Asawa pa naman kayo ng _____. Ako, maliit na tao lang po, binabayaran ko mga tao kada araw. Ang laki na po na discount binigay ko sa inyo. (Ma'am why are you behaving that way, you're the wife of ______. I'm just a small businesswoman, paying her people on daily basis. I already gave you a huge discount.)

More pleading and cajoling go back and forth over the phone until the shop owner so disgusted says, "di bale po, kahit lugi ako, balik nyo nalang po ang furniture (never mind, even if I'm not going to make a sale, it's better you just return the furniture)."

So Missus eventually pays the entire amount owed to the shop owner. But none too soon after, she blabs about the incident to the entire office of her husband but with a different twist. This time she says it's the shop owner who still owes her some goods despite the fact that she had already paid the shop owner the total cost of the furniture!

Someone from Missus' hubby's office eventually set out to talk with the shop owner and asked what happened. Shop owner said that yes, she still owes Missus a bird cage. But the shop owner said: "Oo nag-promise ako bibigyan ko sya ng bird cage pero yung gusto ho nya, yung magkakasya ang tao! E ang estimate ko dun, P35,000. Yung bibigay ko sa kanya bird cage na maliit lang. (Yes I promised her I'd give her a bird cage. But what she want is a bird cage large enough to fit people in! I estimate that that would cost P35,0000. I'm just going to give her a small bird cage.)"

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Sweeties, my source swears the shop owner was on the verge of tears when telling this story. She wasn't kidding about Missus wanting that large bird cage to put people in either. Graveh! Ano kaya ikukulong nya dun? Mga maids?! Ahem. Da who itong high-handed Missus na itoh?