This is how I do it!

A lady stopped me on Thursday. She said she had a question for me. She asked: Mr Bousquet, how do you come up with the topic for your commentaries? I told her I don’t. She didn’t understand, so I took time to explain to her that I really never know what my next commentary will be about. She still wanted to know how I decide in the end what to comment about. I told her I get my ideas from people. She wanted to know how. She insisted that I explain. I realized this was one fan who was not about to leave without an answer to her questions, so I asked her to sit and join me at the table I sat. I started to explain to her that since my commentaries are on Fridays, I usually wait until Thursday to start thinking of what my topic will be. But I never decide until I sit at the computer with one hour to get ready to record. This fan was particularly interested in how this commentary thing worked, so I told her to stick around for a while and she will probably get the picture.
Within minutes, a friend walked into the little shop where we sat. He came to buy a condom. He asked for what he wanted somewhat softly, as if he was ashamed. The lady behind the counter told him he did not need to feel ashamed because these days people are advised to use condoms every time they have sex with a stranger. “Condom saves lives,” she told him. After the guy left, I asked for a piece of paper and wrote on it. The lady asked me what I wrote. I told her it was what the guy said – “condoms save lives.” She asked me why I wrote it down. I told her it was because I could do a commentary on that. She asked me what angle I would take. I told her that when I was growing up, a condom was called a “Frenchie” or a “French letter” – and people used to hide it away from the eyes of others. She looked at me and asked me: “Soooo? What’s there to make a commentary about?” I explained to her that my angle would be that “once upon a time a condom was to prevent life, but today it is to save life.” She frowned, watched me in the eyes, thought a bit – and then she smiled. She got the message.
Soon after, a gentleman entered with a little boy, it was his son. I knew them both. After a while, the son told the father he wanted to go. The father was not yet ready, but he had to take the child home because it was after dark and the little boy was still in his school uniform. I watched my friend and told him he had to leave whether he wanted to or not because he was a single parent. He watched me, said a long “cheups” and replied” Single parent, double trouble.”

I wrote that quote down and my inquiring lady friend got the message. She asked me: You go do a commentary about dat? I told her I could write a whole book about it because most people think single parents are only women. Right there, in living colour, before her very eyes, she was seeing that men too have to face the double trouble of being single parents.
But the commentary I really wanted to do today was from an experience I had at the supermarket the other day – and it’s something that you too have probably experienced. It is said that Caribbean people will always find a way to beat the system – no matter what the system or who created it. We see that every day.
Take what we do to beat the rising cost of living. The government tells us we must tie our waists. The economists tell us we must save. The consumer advocates say we must choose what to buy and what to do without. Me? I still buy what I want once I have the money.
It was while spending what I had to get that I wanted at Super J the other day that I came face to face with a real Saint Lucian way to cut costs and save. It’s been happening here from time to time, but since the prices of food items started going up I realized that the higher they go, the more people seek ways and means of beating the costs.
Here’s how it goes: you get to the cashier and the person ahead of you asks you “You have a card?” And if you say yes, she will ask you: can you lend it to me? You take your card out of your wallet and you lend it to her, she passes it to the cashier who swipes it and hands it back, not to her but to you. Out of curiosity, I asked the last lady who borrowed my Super J loyalty card why she borrowed it. She replied: “I get the discount you get the points; so both of us win.” I couldn’t quarrel with that.
I suspect that as prices go higher at the supermarkets, this business of lending and borrowing loyalty cards will become a real business, with people lining up at the end of the counter to volunteer to give savings in order to get points. That is, if the minister’s father doesn’t see this commentary before tomorrow.
So, when it comes to how I get my topics for comment (to borrow a term from the inimitable Willie James) ‘if you didn’t know, then now you know!’(end)