When I was a kid I used to sell stuff. My mother encouraged me because she wanted me to become a businesswoman. I eventually stopped because it was hard to keep track of the businesses and keep up with my homework.
1.) Moving Butterfly Hair Clips
Moving butterfly clips became really popular. I would make my maid Janelle buy butterfly clips from the store near our house. I couldn’t go out of the house because I was still a kid, and I wasn’t allowed. The butterfly clips are made of some steel material, and it has springs so the wings of the butterfly move on its own. When you pin it on your hair, you look like you have a live butterfly sitting on your head. My classmates loved them and I loved them. My classmates would even wear more than one butterfly at a time. I also had butterfly rings, but they weren’t as popular as the clips. I would pick the prettiest clips that Janelle bought and sell the ugly ones. Sometimes I worried that nobody would buy the clips because they were ugly, but people still bought them. I guess everyone was so obsessed with this fashion trend that it didn’t matter if the clips were ugly, all that mattered was that they had a butterfly clip. Or maybe some people actually thought those ugly clips were pretty.
2.) Carrot Juice
My mama liked to eat healthy, so she bought some carrot juice that were in tetra packs. I think it was called Mr. Carrot or something. I liked the carrot juice, so I decided to sell them. My cousins Erika, Erinn, Errol, Erijah, and Era just lived next door so I decided to ask their help. We set up a table in front of our house and waited for people to buy. We didn’t sell a lot, so we were getting desperate. One guy went to our table, and we started enthusiastically telling him about the carrot juice. He said he’ll buy some when he comes back. We waited for him to come back, and when we saw him walking down the street, we asked him to fulfill his promise. He did not. He started to run and my cousins ran after him. They didn’t catch him though, but they had fun running after him.
3.) Texts
I used to sell texts, which are small cards showing anime characters. I sold Sailor Moon, Ghost Fighter, and Hunter X Hunter texts. Ma and I would buy a banig of texts in Batangas. Around four texts were individually wrapped in a small plastic pouch. I was so obsessed with Ghost fighter that I would open the plastic wrappings, take the really pretty text cards, and put back the ugly ones, and seal the plastic back again. I did not realize that I was putting back text cards that were the same. My classmate Bernice irritated when she saw that the texts she bought had the same picture. She asked me “Bakit ganito, pare-pareho,” and I was like “Ewan ko.”
4.) Stickers
Everyone was crazy about stickers, and everyone had a sticker album. My favorite stickers were Lisa Frank and Sandy Lion. I would constantly rearrange my stickers in my sticker album to make room for new ones or to make a prettier arrangement. I didn’t sell any Lisa Frank though, I mostly sold Sailor Moon stickers.
5.) Puzzle
I mistakenly placed a sticker on a paper, and not on a special sticker paper (the ones used for sticker albums). I couldn’t sell it anymore as a sticker. I cut it up into pieces and told my classmate that it was a puzzle. She actually bought it.
6.) F4 notebooks
Meteor Garden a Taiwanese telenovela became really popular in the Philippines. The four leading male characters were part of a band called F4. I had a crush on Hua Ze Lei and Dao Ming Si.
7.) Robee Stickers
If you wanted a customized sticker with a cute design which has your name, address, and any other information that you want to include, you would want a robee sticker. I was shy to go around and ask my classmates if they wanted to order some stickers, so I thought of a different strategy. I would bring out the design catalogue and put it on my desk, look through it, pretending to be very interested. Eventually someone will always ask “What’s that?” then I will tell them all about the robee stickers.
8.) Fun Chum Products
I used to sell bags or folders made of fun chum tetra packs.
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Age of the Diary by Jasmine T. Cruz. If you like this post, please subscribe to this blog. Follow Ja on Twitter: ageofthediary. Email Ja at: ageofthediary@gmail.com.
