Return of Merchandise

(Season One, Episode 02)

LEAD CHARACTER has returned home safely. Over a month has passed. On this one particular night, LEAD CHARACTER is nursing a hangover for having had almost four full glasses of bullfrogs the other night. Bullfrog is a great drink, but only if you have a glass. More than a glass usually spells inappropriate laughing at people with disabilities and sleeping for over four hours in an Internet Cafe. But that is another story. Tonight LEAD CHARACTER still feels a little bit drunk. He craves for spicy beef-flavored instant noodles with egg. So he goes out to the nearest sari-sari store (right next to his house).

LEAD CHARACTER: Do you have spicy beef-flavored instant noodles?

SON OF VENDOR: Yes, we do, Lead Character.

LEAD CHARACTER: I would like to buy one, please, Son of Vendor.

LEAD CHARACTER'S gaze shifts to the SON OF VENDOR'S father (which by default just makes him VENDOR). The VENDOR is old. He’s probably in his late fifties. He is wearing a sleeveless shirt and LEAD CHARACTER has a hard time deciding if the VENDOR'S arms are all muscles, or all bones wrapped in veins.

LEAD CHARACTER (cont’d): And one egg.

SON OF VENDOR goes on to get the noodles and egg. But…

SON OF VENDOR: I’m sorry but we’re out of spicy ones. Just plain beef.

LEAD CHARACTER considers this for a minute. He decides that it’s too tiring to go to another sari-sari store.

LEAD CHARACTER: It’s fine. Plain beef will do.

So LEAD CHARACTER gets the egg and the plain beef-flavored instant noodles and pays. He goes home and boils water. While waiting for the water to boil, LEAD CHARACTER realizes that he’s horny. He makes a mental note to masturbate later.

The water boils. LEAD CHARACTER gets a large bowl to beat the egg in. Upon breaking the egg, he finds that it’s bad. Real bad. It has blood.

LEAD CHARACTER looks up and tries to come up with a next plan of action. He knows the right thing to do is to return the egg and ask for another one. But LEAD CHARACTER is not exactly a force of nature. In fact, one has to wonder why he is even a lead character when he does not have a strong enough personality to go through life. He heaves and recalls all those times that he never asked for the 50-centavo change in his numerous jeepney rides to and from work. The jeepney fare is Php6.50. But somehow, drivers seem to think that LEAD CHARACTER is more than happy to pay his entire Php7.00 without asking for a change.

LEAD CHARACTER gathers himself together and goes back to the sari-sari store with the bowl of bloody egg.

LEAD CHARACTER: Hi. Can I have this egg exchanged with a fresh one? It’s bad. (Shows the bowl.)

SON OF VENDOR looks to his father, questioning.

VENDOR (to LEAD CHARACTER): I’m sorry. We have a no-return policy.

LEAD CHARACTER is taken aback.

LEAD CHARACTER: But the egg you just sold me is bad. It has blood. Look. (Tilts the bowl further so it’s visible to the veiny-armed Vendor.)

VENDOR (shaking his head, smiling smugly): I’m sorry, we can’t accept that. We
ourselves cannot return it to the store we bought it from.

LEAD CHARACTER feels like crying.

LEAD CHARACTER: But it’s not my fault your egg is bad.

VENDOR: I’m sorry, kid. But it’s just not possible.

LEAD CHARACTER continues to hold back his tears.

LEAD CHARACTER (bowing his head low): OK.

LEAD CHARACTER goes back home, his breathing by this time a lot heavier than on ordinary days. He hurls the bowl of bad egg towards the wall. His MOTHER jolts up from watching TV.

MOTHER: What’s wrong?

LEAD CHARACTER (sobbing): They won’t replace the egg. (Now yelling) They won’t replace the goddamn egg!

LEAD CHARACTER starts throwing things away: their 30-inch flat-screen TV, their printer-copier-scanner-in-one, monobloc chairs….

MOTHER: Calm down, hijo! Calm down!

LEAD CHARACTER'S mother pins him down to the floor.

LEAD CHARACTER: Get off of me! He’s not replacing the egg!

It dawns on LEAD CHARACTER that all of this is probably some big government conspiracy that goes all the way up to the City Hall, Return of Merchandise Office. Come to think of it, what happened to him at the medical center may have been another conspiracy that goes all the way up to the City Hall, Medical Exam Office.

MOTHER (whispering in LEAD CHARACTER'S ear): Hush now, child. It’s all going to be OK.

LEAD CHARACTER'S heaving slows and lightens.

LEAD CHARACTER (voice-over): Yes, it’s all going to be OK. I’m going to have my revenge. Not to the Vendor, not to the medical receptionist who thought I was thirty-five years old, but to the government. The government is going to pay.

Screen blackens.

Moral of the story: The customer is always right, but sometimes hurt.

See you all next time!