Little shop in the corner

There is a little shop in the corner from our office. Its size betrays its great utility to the offices nearby, especially to us. It is the place we go to when our office runs out of toilet paper, when we are in the mood to hunt for a snack in the middle of a slow day, when the boss decides to shower his suspecting wife some gifts, and would send one of us along to forage for a gift wrapping paper, or when we are in need of a duplicate key made. I was there when my face was splotched with angry red welts due to hives, buying an antihistamine. Because, yes, this little shop is also a little pharmacy. And, if ever our office decides to make an impromptu toast to a job well done, we would be running to this store, too, for an emergency liquor raid.

If that is not peculiar enough, none of the wares has sticker price on them. If you need to know the price of the balaklava, for instance, you have to ask him. "One dollar, 99 cents, one dollar and 75...," he recited once, with automated precision, as I held up one item after another. Amazed, I asked the obvious question, to which he replied nonchalantly, "No need to put price on them, they are all up here," indicating his head.

I chat with him, occasionally, while I wait for the bus that is perpetually late, or while I refill my lungs with fresh air, of which I am deprived while working alongside an office that smells of that stink you wish to God is not coming from the bottom of your shoes. One day, he told me of how he came to America, armed with youthful folly and without any expectations. Soon, he got married and settled down with his wife who bore him three boys. He opened this little shop in the corner as a means to an end. For several years this shop supported the family of five, up to the day the wife passed away. I asked if four ever became five again, to which he gruffly replied, "What's the point of marrying again? women are all the same; she was enough for me," fair enough, I thought.

His intelligence was overshadowed by his apparent diligence borne of a simple philosophy that urges one to believe that hard work yields fruitful dividends each time. And in his case, it did. Two of his sons have graduated from college and are each supporting a family of their own. And the youngest proved to be his capstone--a senior Engineering major at University of California, San Diego.

He knew he deserved the awe and respect that were reflected in my face. Intoxicated by this, he pointed at his little shop and revealed,"This is paying for his tuition... no scholarship." As if to emphasize how much blood that university is siphoning off of him, he buoyantly exclaimed that his son will graduate soon, and all the tuition payment schedules will just be a nightmarish anecdote in the past.

His little shop is badly in need of a fresh coat of paint, a more decipherable signage and updated interiors. But he would stand outside his shop with an air of a master surveying his vast domain. His little shop stands in the corner, unassumingly, ever reliable, and just as easily forgotten, quietly fulfilling an immigrant family's American dream.