I found myself at National Bookstore today, buying something I really shouldn't be buying considering the circumstances. But then, old habits are hard to break. Also, this really isn't the point of this perfunctory entry.
Again. I found myself at National Bookstore today. A Saturday, almost at the tail-end of July, smack in the middle of the lunch hour, and the lines at the cashiers are long. Like, really long.
It's not like I haven't been there for months and am surprised at the lengths of the queues. I found myself going there at least once a month lately, looking for construction paper, or craft-grade scissors, or any lanyard that will do. And in all those instances, there are queues, but none as long as the one I saw today. There were fifteen, perhaps twenty people in the queue. Why are this many people buying supplies at the bookstore at this time of the year?
And then I remembered that things are much different than I remember them.
For one, it's technically back-to-school season. Right. There was that shift in the start of the school year to reduce the number of class cancellations due to storms. And then there's the pandemic, which meant that for the past two-odd years, nobody actually went to the classroom. Only now are the authorities getting serious in reopening schools and restarting in-person classes - I guess, since most kids are already vaccinated.
But then, these are things that you tend to not think of, at least when you haven't got kids to send to school. It feels like we've been in an information vacuum these past two-odd years. In our attempt to keep tabs on everything, or at least most things we usually keep tabs of, we realize we know less and less. It used to be that we all had the sense that it's summer, or that it's back-to-school season, or that it's Undas, or that it's Christmas. Now, we all have helmets on, paying virtually no attention to the things that used to be common knowledge, or things that bring us together, more or less. Whether it's by design or by accident, it seems we all go out of our way to be different from everybody else.
And yes, I don't know what I'm really saying at this point. Oh, I'm already up next? Great. If only the bookstore would remove the plastic covers separating me from the cashier. Not that I'm against preventing the virus from spreading, but it's awkward not being able to see the person you're making a transaction with. There's duct tape at my eye level, and that blocks everything. Why am I here again anyway?
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