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Expired chocolates
I had the wrong impression that the reason why my former boss was a compulsive borrower and a kleptomaniac was because she was deprived when she was young. According to her she never attended any social activities in school because she had no shoes and clothes to wear.
I do not know how she was able to come to the US and married a Caucasian. The husband who discovered his addiction to borrowing confiscated all her credit cards. Then she turned into kleptomania. First time I noticed her put some items without security tags in her tote bag, I thought she was just being playful. The cost of merchandise was less than US$ 5.00 while she bought several pieces of expensive dresses and jackets.
She wore them without removing the price tags. Being the clueless me, I thought she just would like others to see that they were expensive.
Before the month ended, she bundled all these items and returned them to the store. That time, the stores were not that strict yet for returned goods. There was a time when she got embarrassed (wala namang hiya eh) when the sales associate of a high end store told her that they were no longer carrying the items that she was returning in their inventories--meaning she purchased it long time ago. She was not aware that department stores cleaned their inventories yearly for new fashions and arrivals.
Melted chocolates
My male tsikiting gubat admitted that he felt envious of our neighbors when they were studying. The father was a Vice-President of a big conglomerate and the mother was a stay-at-home-mom. Since I was a single parent, I was often missed in their schools' acitivities.
The young girls were studying in an exclusive school and so were the boys where they were schoolmates of my TG. They were not deprived. The mom brought them to school in the morning, brought them home-cooked lunch at noon time and picked them up in the afternoon.
When they were in college, the father bought them their first cars. Imagine, the traffic in our street.
The younger girl got married right after college. She was gifted a house and lot by the parents. Then one day, she came and borrowed money from my TG. My TG lent him the amount since it was farthest from his mind that she would not pay. One day he saw her in her parents' house together with her baby. She pawned the car and the house. It was only at this point when he realized that she became a compulsive borrower. She had borrowed from almost all neighbors. Her husband left him and her father came to the rescue by bringing her to their old house.
The older girl became an OFW. When she came back, she was pregnant. Her parents adopted the baby while she tried to reconcile with her husband.
I still remembered them join our Christmas parties in the village. So innocent looking and clueless what's the world outside the village.
Pinaysaamerika
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