In a country where many places, particularly Metro Manila, get flooded several days—even weeks—a year, it’s hard to understand why stores do not carry nice rain boots that you can wear to the office, the mall, restaurants, without looking like you got lost on your way to the wet market.
And yet stores sell boots, including calf- and knee-high styles, that—if wearers will only be honest enough to admit it—are completely unsuitable to our kind of weather. In the dry season, they are extremely hot and uncomfortable, and in the wet months they offer no protection at all against dirty, unsafe floodwaters.
I will probably get responses that I should do my search for rain boots online. I have done that, and realized that online is not the way to shop if you are looking for something you want to wear immediately.
A friend and I tried buying boots online. They looked pretty enough viewed from computer screens, but the problem is, despite all the technological advances, it seems we still have not standardized sizes. And, of course, there is no way you can find out if you are getting the size you need until the product is delivered.
The size 8 pair my friend ordered turned out to be one or two sizes smaller. The size 6 I got was almost big enough for two feet that people in the office were telling me the number was probably supposed to be read upside down—it was 9, rather than 6.
Getting them changed was also not fast enough for my purposes. First, they have to be picked up, returned to the store and checked. And it seems online stores do not have a huge inventory, like regular establishments, so finding a replacement takes time. They have to wait for stocks to be replenished.
Even if the catalogue shows something that might be a suitable replacement, changing your order is not as easy as putting the pair you do not want back on the rack, and choosing something else as you do in a regular store. That suitable pair may have already been ordered before they can complete the paperwork for the returned item, so they cannot give it to you.
The complicated procedure defeats the whole reason for buying rain boots. I need the shoes now when streets get flooded almost every other day. By the time the online store will finally have a replacement for my order, it will probably be already the dry season.
Green building
It is good to hear that the new Robinsons mall at the old site of the Magnolia ice cream plant in Quezon City does not only look nice but is “green,” too. Frederick Go, president of Robinsons Land Corp., mentioned during its opening some of the things that make the new mall environment-friendly.
Among other things, Robinsons Magnolia has a rainwater collection system, and the water will be treated so it can be used. Even wastewater will be recycled. As much natural lighting will be used as a skylight and clerestory, a high wall with narrow windows, have been installed. Waste segregation will also be strictly implemented.
Garden show
Visit the ongoing garden show at the Quezon Memorial Circle (Flower Garden area) right across the Quezon City Hall in Diliman and either start a garden or add plants to your existing one. With almost every available space being cemented, we should do whatever little we can to create a green spot for ourselves.
The 2012 midyear orchid show of the Philippine Orchid Society, with the theme “Gardening is more fun in the Philippines,” ends Sept. 10.
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