Musings

Remember the raffle I had last during my blog's 10th anniversary? May nakalimutan akong kwento. Well, when I queued to pay for the coloring book and the red bowls for the raffle, I was next to a little old lady. Then I saw her paying for chipped cups with broken handles. The store sells their damaged cups and ceramics by weight, and that's where she got them. It saddened me, because there I was, poised to pay for some cute bowls that weren't even particularly expensive, and here's someone buying damaged cups because she [possibly] can't afford to buy good ones. I felt sad and uncomfortable. I wanted to buy the lady some nice ones or give her some of my Cath Kidstons, but she had this unmistakable look of pride, and I would hate if she feels insulted by my offer.

Which brings me to my next point. I don't know if I'm ungrateful, but I really cringe when I see people using the hashtag #blessed, or gasp(!!!), #beyondblessed in the most inane pictures. As some of you know, I have an IG shop, and I always see these women posting pictures of their most recent teacup acquisition captioned with "Truly, madly, deeply in love with you. #Grateful #Thankful #Blessed #Beyondblessed". Matanong ko lang, are there metrics for blessedness? Some sort of a Likert scale, perhaps? Like if it's a rare teacup in mint condition, #beyondblessed, but if it has a scratch, #blessed lang? Although possibly ako lang talaga ang may problema...that I am not grateful enough. After all, little things that we take for granted might be valuable treasures to others.


On a serious note, and I think I'm not being OA about this, I am very thankful for the relative success of my Instagram store. I started it out without any clear or specific item in mind -- I just posted things that I myself would buy. I thought about selling antique teacups and saucers, but I didn't have a supplier. Luckily, my annual supply of Cath Kidston mugs came a bit early last year, and through another stroke of luck, I was able to find an inventory of Butler Mrs. Winterbottom's cottage-style ceramics. And those two brands became my bestsellers. I was able to find my own niche in the overwhelmingly huge world of online selling. And like the proverbial cherry on top, I got some new friends along the way. There's this lady, who I'm quite sure is as lovely as her words, from Cebu who places orders almost every month, and it's such a joy to transact with her -- always polite and pleasant. As they say it nowadays, nakaka-good vibes. Meron pa rin naman na baliw-baliwan customers, pero I don't wanna dwell on them na, and besides, the good customers outnumber the bad. I'm not exactly getting rich with this IG gig, but I love shopping, whether for myself or for others, and I'm happy to have some sort of platform where I can buy and share my finds and earn a bit extra as well.