Our Myla vs. the Neighbor Lola

In my earlier post, I mentioned that I had a *crisis* that I had to attend to at home.

Here it is.

The construction of a new house just in front of ours started last month. On our street, there were two mini-sari-sari stores. The R store, which was located father up the street, and Lola's store, which was just 2 houses away from ours. Now, since the construction started, the "Kuyas" would buy from Lola. However, Lola has a limited selection of wares. She doesn't sell merienda and ice. Aside from that, Lola was always cranky, so the Kuyas were turned off at the way they were treated. Of course, the Kuyas, being under the hot sun all day, would rather buy from the nearest store than to walk farther up the street to buy from the friendlier neighbor. But given Lola's attitude, they tried to think of a way to avoid doing neither. They convinced our Myla (the Osos' codename for housekeepers/ yayas - don't ask why, I forgot) and the myla next door to sell them merienda and ice. The enterprising mylas obliged, of course with permission from us. What they would do is to buy ready-made snacks at the market and sell them to the Kuyas for 2-5 pesos more, each. This would then offset their fare going to and coming back from the market, and leave them with a profit of 20-25 pesos each. Not bad, eh?

After a week of doing business, Lola's daughter started texting me to remind my myla to pay up for an Avon product that was puchased from her. She was so persistent in her texts that I was close to calling her up to tell her to stop texting me! When she finally stopped, she started harassing my myla and the other myla to stop selling stuff to the Kuyas! She even went as far as talking to the neighbor for them to forbid the other myla from selling food. Lola also talked to the owner of the R store saying that the mylas had no business selling food and ice to the kuyas and that they needed a permit to run their business. Now, what's funny here is that the R store and Lola both do not have permits to operate a store. Huh. So if they brought the case to the Barangay, they would be the first to be hit. R store owner was cool with the mylas business. The points are:

1. They're selling something that they both do not have
2. They're just selling in the afternoon anyway
3. The homeowners that they work for have permitted them
4. No one can force any of the homeowners where they can buy stuff.

Lola even tried an appeal to pity. She told the other myla that she's old, sick and that her daughter doesn't have a job, so the store is all they have. I'm like, what is she losing? She's not even selling what the mylas are selling. That's basically the reason why they're rationing food to the kuyas.

The other day, she came to the house and demanded that my myla go with her to talk to the association president. If she was sick, well, she's a very sneaky sick lola. I was not informed of a meeting with the President, so I used my connections and just spoke with the President on the phone relaying our side of the story. He just laughed and said that we shouldn't mind the Lola since she's old and sick (and sneaky. hmp.).

Thankfully, that's the end of that, and I sure hope that they never bother us again.

And yes, we're not buying from them anymore. They just lost our business.