The Curious Case of the Lost Worcestershire Sauce

Early this morning, my Inay's been bugging me to buy her a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Her supply for her biweekly home-made longganisa fest just ran out, and she's pretty adamant about that I get one. Me, of course, being more of a tocino guy, refused to get up and told her that she should let my other siblings do the honor. Which, naturally, didn't happen. So by about 10 AM, I'm already set and the scooter's waiting outside.

I knew from the start that this will be a tricky mission; not many sari-sari stores sell something they can barely pronounce. So I made a mental list of a number of potential sari-sari stores in our area and visited each of them.

The first store I visited told me that they have one, but then they realized that it's different from oyster sauce. No, there's no such thing as 'Worcestoystershire' sauce, ma'am.

The second one was worse: "Sigarilyo ho, kuya?" When I said no, she asked her husband if they have that Worcestershire thing, and the guy said, "Ano yun, sigarilyo?" Great.

The third gave me the typical "Worshershterwha?" reply and basically avoided further embarrassment by shaking his head.

The fourth store was a bit of a tease. The lady told me that they have one, but they don't know its price. So why sell it, then?!

Frustration and blinding sunlight can lead to irrational decisions, so true to form, I decided to drive to a supermarket outside our subdivision -- even without a helmet, a real license plate, and a driver's license. Anything just to get this over with, I thought, regardless of the risk involved.

The drive to the supermarket was surprisingly uneventful, save for a number of baranggay tanod blocking the road to offer what looked like stickers. When I arrived, I ran straight to the 'Seasoning' section and got 2 bottles. If this was an RPG, I'd be jumping for joy and doing a cheesy battle pose. In real life, though, I just settled for a pinipig ice cream.

I expected the drive back home to be uneventful as well, and it seemed so at the start until I heard someone from the other side of the road shouting my name. The guy waved and ran in my direction, and for a split-second I thought that he was the guy who kept bugging me to join their church back in high school. A wild thought suggested that I should run him over and make a hasty escape, but I'm not much of a criminal these days, so I just smiled (or smirked, my face doesn't really know the difference) and gave him a puzzled look.

What followed was the most surreal conversation I've had in years. Apparently this guy knows me when I was in college, and by the way he speaks, I got the impression that we were friends. But here's the thing: I can't remember him. I admit, I have a bad habit of pretending not to remember people just to avoid pointless conversations, but this time, I truly, genuinely can't remember the guy.

He kept saying that we have a common friend named Mel (I really can't remember because we're causing a small traffic jam and everyone's honking their horns). A quick scan of my college memories did not help; I kept matching his face with all the places and events in LB and nothing came up. SML or otherwise, the moment was awkward. My social skills forgot to tell me that in situations like this, I should just pretend and go with the flow, so I turned to good, old brutal honesty: I told him I can't remember him and that maybe my mind's just mixed up with all the people I met. Frustrated, the guy just said okay and walked away.

The rest of the journey was spent doing a thorough check on where the heck this guy fits in my LB memory bubble. Still nothing came up. When I arrived, my Inay simply thanked me for the trouble. I said, "No, thank you." After all, causality played a huge part in the contrivances of this blog-worthy morning, and it all started with a search for a bottle of Worcestershire sauce.

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PS. In the 0.00001% chance that you're reading this, whoever you are, I apologize for the rude welcome. I still don't remember you, though.