Of course, only she would insist this blue, pink, and purple market bag be her makeup bag. There it was sitting on top of her suitcase so impractical like her. It doesn’t even zip up. Everything will fall out of it.
I asked her why she chose this bag. She said it reminded her of the palenke in the Philippines. “What’s a palenke?” I asked. She said, “It’s an open-air market where they sell cheap fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, so on and so forth.”
“How much was the bag?” I asked. “It was $5.00,” she said. I replied, “Really? You paid $5.00 for that?” She said, “Yeah, I saw it and loved it.” “Why?” I asked. She said, “It reminded me of home.”
Then she pulls out a bigger orange plaid market bag. “Here’s a bigger version. It’s for my computer,” she said. “You’re joking. You’re going to look like a bag lady with that,” I said kidding her.
She turned to me her eyes watering. She said, “We need to break up.” “Why? I was joking,” I said. “We just have to. You don’t get me. We’re too different. You’re too American and I’m too Filipino.” “Oh no, we’re not breaking up over your market bags. I’m sorry,” I said.
