Market! Market!

When I was still a kid of about seven or eight, I loved going with my Mom to the market on early Saturday mornings. I'm talking about the Pasig wet market here, or the palengke as we know it. I can even remember her budget then. I believe it was only about 300 pesos for our whole week's supply of food.

Why did I love to tag along with her? Honestly, I can't remember now. Maybe it was because I wanted to make sure she buys my favorite chichirya which me and my brother would gobble up as we watch the Saturday Fun Machine on our TV when I got home.

Or maybe I enjoyed having breakfast in one of the carinderias on the 2nd floor of the market. I still remember it vividly. The sweaty crowd, the obnoxious smell, the vocal noise, and yes, all those swarms of flies buzzing around me and my food. Nothing like a breakfast of smoking-hot lugaw in the palengke. I'm cringing at the memories now, iiwwwww!!!

Fast-forward to the present -- long after I have outgrown that weird Saturday habit and now prefer to extend my sleep on Saturday mornings. And forward to the times when my Mom's 300-peso weekly budget would just be a one-day baon of one student.

When I got married, I discovered that my wife also has a weird infatuation with palengkes. We live in a place where there is a nearby talipapa (smaller version of a palengke) in one of the villages across the main road. Early on in our marriage, my wife loved bringing along our maid (sometimes me when we didn't have a maid) with her to the talipapa to buy the food which she would cook.

At first I dismissed this behavior as just trying to be a show off. Hey, we just got married and maybe she just wanted to impress me that she can be the master of everything concerning the kitchen. Pasikat, huh! But then, as time went on, I discovered that it wasn't. She confessed to me that she really had an engrossed fascination with the palengke. She loves going there and buying all sorts of stuff she needs in cooking. She loves the wide variety of things she can buy at prices which would sometimes make grocery-shopping be considered financial harakiri for your family budget.

I discovered that she got it from her Mom. My mom-in-law also loves going to the palengke whenever she gets the chance. And I go, "Ahhh, so that's the reason why we always stop over palengkes whenever we go out on a trip." Hey, my mom-in-law cooks good food so who's complaining? And thank God my wife got it after her Mom.

So, one day I told my palengke-fascinated wife that I should bring her over to the Pasig Market - the palengke where my mom used to bring me along on Saturdays. I thought that she would enjoy it there. More options of vendors, a wider variety of food stalls, and even cheaper items.

I described the place to her. A building of 3 floors with sections categorized like that of a grocery. One floor for the wet stuff like meat and fish. Another floor for vegetables and some other dry food items. And there's even another floor for clothes and some school stuff.

My wife considered my offer. She thought about it hard. And I was surprised by her response.

No, she didn't want me to bring her to the Pasig Mega-palengke. Not yet. The reason? The place may just be too much for her that she may be overwhelmed.

Just like any big event in anyone's life, my wife shall tell me when the time comes. She'll tell me when she is emotionally ready to conquer the Pasig palengke.