It would probably sound appealing to many if I told them that I live a block away from the mall, in a house and not in some high-rise apartment building and that I have all the conveniences of living in the heart of the city and the peace and quiet of suburbia. In fact, I am sure that hearing this, many of my foreign friends would jump on the next plane to Iloilo and buy a house next to mine.
This mall is conveniently located in a neighborhood shared by business and homes. Convenient for the mall because it is the backyard of its customers and supposedly convenient for all of us, too. We can run to the mall for little things that the "tiangge" (whole-in-the-wall mini stores so common in the Philippines) might sell on jacked up prices. I mean, we can actually run in our shorts and slippers to get "suka" (vinegar) for less because most store owners shop in the mall ANYWAY.
Great, huh. Looks like a sweetheart deal living around here.Guess again. This mall has sales every 15 days and during those sale days anyone wearing a pacemaker or even just an unstable heartbeat could die. Why? The sound system blares the base to kingdom come -- and as icing on the cake, we wake up to this alarm as early as 8 AM. It's better now I guess. Last year they started at 6 AM.
The wall-to-wall sound system faces the residential homes across the street and could be heard a block away. People I talk to on the phone sometimes tell me, 'Hey, why did you not invite me to your party!" What party? Did I miss anything here? Nope, they are referring to the sounds in the background that it seems like I was having the party in my home.
Now, it's as if the nuisance of one sound system is not enough, one Sunday morning when only the angels and early-bird church goers are up about, the neighborhood was awaken to not 1, but 2 sounds systems seemingly competing as to who can wake the demons in the bowels of hell at such an ungodly hour.
Do they know what they are doing? Well, if they have forgotten an angry monster in her bunny slippers and pajamas charging to their office and demanding to see the manager then those people running the mall must have the worst kind of memory loss.
The conversation that transpire between me and the security guard in their customer service office -- the guard was the only person around because every single one of them was out, heaven forbid a customer complains to interrupt their lunches -- is another beautiful topic to talk about in another post because that one deserves as much drama as this post.
So, how's your neighborhood been doing? Ha? You gotta speak louder -- I can't hear you.
