Alfred – my Shopping Buddy

, , , , 4 Comments

In my excitement about the Magic Sing (see 2 posts down), I forgot other things I had originally intended to blog about on Sunday night.

When neither one of us in a hurry, or tripping over ourselves from sleep deprivation – I truly enjoy going on a shopping spree with Alfred. Last Sunday, that’s what we did and it was fun!

I had secretly wished we’d go to Cubao again so I can buy yarn from Maning’s for a project but Alfred wanted to avoid the UAAP crowd. As it turns out, half of the population was at the Araneta that afternoon, but the other half was in Trinoma! Aside from the Pampers event at the Activity Center of the huge mall, we could see no other reason why the place was packed. Seriously, there was a LOT of people in there. 

Because this outing was specifically intended to be a jeans hunt for Alfred, he led the way. We still managed to land ourselves in the area where the Sports boutiques are – he was also secretly wishing something: that he’d find a pair of trainers that he loved on sale. Now I didn’t intend to buy anything that day, but I happened to see some thing(s) I like and that actually fit me, so I swiped away (not on credit, it was using my ATM as a debit card 😉 ).

So there was my first purchase at the Puma shop – a knitted sweater in some shade of gold.

They had it in black too, but when I tried the golden one on, it actually looked better than I anticipated (it isn’t the shining/shimmering gold type okay). I really like how it looks on me. It was Alfred’s vote to take the golden one. If I was on my own, I’d either have passed on it, or taken home the black one.

Next stop was the Landmark Department Store. Alfred was looking for a pair of blue pants for his mom – we were going to buy one for her as a birthday present. We searched and searched for the perfect pair but we ended up buying this cute, light blouse for me instead. At first, Alfred wasn’t keen on me getting that blouse, but when he saw it on me – he gave it a thumbs up. It’s not my usual style – but I think the light and airy feel of it reflects my personality better.

Why is Alfred’s opinion so important when I shop for my own clothes? It’s not because he has to approve what I wear and how I wear them. Not that at all. It’s just that when it comes to what looks good on me, I trust his taste. I don’t agree a hundred percent of the time, of course, but I do listen to him like 70%. Hehe. It’s a running joke between us that I think he’s gay!

We also needed to have some photos printed for Papa that day so dropping it off at Kodak Express was our first agenda. As with most other shops in Trinoma, Kodak Express was full too. We didn’t have to wait too long to be attended to though. They have staff there who Photoshop the photos before printing. In my mind, I was thinking, what’s the point? Why do they need to have their photos edited? This girl was laying over somebody else’s hair on top of this girl’s head in the photo. What was up with that? As Alfred and I were exchanging smiles and glances, I thought that’s what he was thinking too. No – he actually liked the idea of working part-time in such a place. Okay…

But why couldn’t the day just be perfect? We weren’t rushing even though Alfred had to go straight to work from the mall. We really were just enjoying ourselves there. More after the jump.


When we finally got him a pair of jeans, and we bought some toiletry stuff, dinner was already on his mind. I had said earlier on that I wanted to have cake – Red Velvet to be specific. Red Ribbon is the only store we know that has RVC so that was easily our choice for dinner. I also prefer their cakes over Goldilocks’.

Wrong move. Alfred got so pissed off, he didn’t really get to enjoy his pan-fried porkchop dinner, that to my opinion really wasn’t so bad.

After paying for our order and getting our number, we found a table and took our seats. We waited what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes, but none of the food or drinks arrived. If cooking was taking long, they could have brought over the cake and the drinks, right? We flagged down a waiter and followed up. My eyes followed him behind the counter and in front of the kitchen window. He seemed to be looking for our order slip. I fished the receipt from my bag and gave it to Alfred right before the waiter reached our table, pen and notepad at hand. Without a word, he took the receipt we gave him. So that was piss off reason #1 – they either lost our order slip, or the cashier mistakenly gave me the receipt that should have been passed on to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, Alfred was up again, following up on the order.

When it arrived – we couldn’t accept that the pan-fried porkchop that was served was the FULL meal listed in the menu. If that was called FULL, what was left for those who ordered HALF? Well, they actually gave us half so the waiter took it back and asked us to wait yet again.

At that point, I refused to look at the time to check how many minutes had passed. I didn’t want to aggravate  the situation even more. I knew Alfred was not happy and I’d rather talk about other things and distract him. He swore never to eat at Red Ribbon Trinoma again.

I realize that it was probably just because there were so many customers there. I couldn’t imagine the place at lunch time that day. The experience led us to talking about staffing issues at work too. Hay.

That was really anti-climactic to our otherwise fun shopping day.

Oh! There’s one thing good that came of it – Alfred is on a quest to make yummy pan-fried porkchop too (loved the taste, crispy on the outside but very soft(?) inside. On Monday for lunch, his experiment ended up more like Lechon Kawali. Today, he didn’t get to try. Can’t wait for when he finally finds the right formula. 🙂