Wet and Icky

I used to think that fingertip moisteners were one of those semi-useless office thingamajigs. They could find use in banks, perhaps, if one has to really count bills by hand. Or, in our case, the treasury department which keeps our--err--treasures.

I now take back the "semi-useless" tag.

I was at this department waiting for the clerk to check if my papers are in order. We were making small talk when suddenly he stuck out his tongue, licked his fingertip and started leafing through my documents with the finger. I was almost tempted to gag at the "unsanitariness" of it all!

As it turned out, the clerk isn't the only one with the habit. There's this woman at the office who does the same every time she thumbs through notes, books, anything. And then there's this client who, after wetting his fingertip and riffling through his papers proceeded to tap me on the shoulders.

I swear, I almost jumped! And I swear, I'm going to include fingertip moisteners in this quarter's request for supplies!

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Speaking of laway ("saliva" sounds so scientific, :P), here's an upside:

For three days last week, I had an inexplicably bum stomach. The kind that goes with sweaty palms, beads of perspiration on the forehead and the very real threat of dehydration. Loperamide didn't help, and neither did a doctor's prescription. Somebody suggested that perhaps I was the unknowing victim of someone who had "sibang" (usog in Tagalog, which doesn't really have a western translation.) And the antidote? The laway of one who has sibang!

And so it came to pass that after three days of being all-too-familiar with the toilet bowl and just about every brand of loperamide, all it took was a thin film of a friend's laway rubbed on my belly. It may be grossly unsanitary, but what do you know? It worked!

I guess it's true: there are some things that science just can't explain. :p

When Frugal Is Unsafe

Frugal is something I associate with the Chinese. My dad had a Chinese national for a stepfather, and he certainly was the waste-not-want-not kind of person. Year in and year out, he would give, as "bonus" to his hardware store employees, a t-shirt and a calendar. The kind where tides and the phases of the moon are plotted.

From a Fil-Chi friend, I learned that a five-centavo markup on highly sellable items is better that a five-peso markup on things that take a little longer to sell.

Such frugality is a cultural thing. The Chinese have seen the worst of times. They have been through wars and pestilence, fires, quakes, rebellions, displacements, migrations and all sorts of trials and tribulations imaginable. Naturally, they learned to make do with what little they had.

But there are times when frugal becomes unsafe. When recycling is taken too far. Like those cheap, toxic plastic toys. Or when this manufacturer used minced cardboard to stuff his dumplings.

And then there are the hair bands made of used condom (see this and this. I don't know, but isn't it kind of like having HIV and STD hanging over your head? And where do they get those used condoms in the first place?