Realizations from Frustrations

Two important learnings yesterday: (1) when in salons, do not be ashamed to ask for the cost of the services they offer, and (2) not all peanut butter brands taste good with just any spacies of banana.

Fitness Day in our office was a blast. I got me a free hair color treatment with a salon along Paseo de Roxas as prize from the raffle held in connection with the roster of wellness-related activities during the rockin whole-day event.

So off to the salon I went. I got me a haircut since I don't wan't to look like a freebie-thirsty scoundrel who just wants to get the item on the gift voucher, as I'm aleady due for one anyway. I also let my guard down on having the stylist person talk me into getting hi-lights to go with the free hair color. It was two hours, a good haircut, a stinging scalp, and fifteen or so foil-infested hair sections later that I saw the bill. Let's just say that its P100.00 less than the cost of a good leather messenger bag at Merger. It's so freakin expensive!

The haircut, color, and hi-lights, were everything I wanted at the moment but I could have gotten the same quality for the other services cheaper from other places. Had I known. Had I just asked. It's a customer's right to know the cost of what he's getting himself into so there's nothing to be ashamed of, really, by asking politely. To make me forget the regret, I just charged the whole thing to experience, pardon the pun.

To get even, I left without as much as a cent for a tip, but gave a heart felt thank you because the staff really deseved it, as I closed the door behind me. The thank you actually meant, "it's been nice but you won't see even a glimpse of my shadow inside your store ever again, not for as long as I still fart."

The realization does not just apply to vanity-related stuff or services. We must all make it a point to always protect our hard-earned bucks from enterprising vultures.

Next on the list is my realization that Planter's Creamy peanut butter does not really go well with the smallish variety of Lakatan (which I bought from a carinderia near my house to cap my lunch off). I had a great time with Peter Pan peanut butter with the larger variety of Lakatan and it just isn't the same with what I just had. Go figure. It just shattered my notion that any peanut butter is best paired with just about any kind of banana you could get your hands on from groceries and wet markets. It may not seem to be a great big deal, but for me it is. The experience will leave me tainted with frustration for the rest of my fruit-loving-and-devouring exitence.

I don't know if I could even classify the two small learnings as pains of growing up. At least I had something to write about.

posted by Fritz @ 8:25 AM