I'm a morning person as much as I look like Jenna Jameson, but if there's one thing that could make me appreciate waking up early, it's a proper breakfast, and by 'proper' I mean heavy and greasy like standard diner fare.

Noting the different fastfood joints near the hospital where my dad was held for observation overnight, I decided on a Burger King despite it being the farthest for the simple reason that I hardly ever go to BK anymore.

While in line, I observed a normal-looking person, and the fact that I just used 'normal-looking' to describe him means that he was not at all normal, at least from my grumpy morning person perspective. He wasn't shabbily dressed but he did wear slippers, which he kept kicking around the place in the same jerky manner that characterized his movements. To top everything off, he kept mewing like a cat. He went about his routine for several minutes until he cut into the line I was on, wedging himself between the two guys in front who were at that moment paying for their food at the counter. He stayed there for a couple of minutes doing his feline impressions while earning stares from the other customers. His pussy routine didn't last long, however, because the security guard finally went over to him and dragged him outside by the collar. Like a cat, ironically.

With that over with, I got myself one of them fancy breakfast combos and just when I took a seat, I was approached by a smiling person who was palming a laminated card. I recognized him at once as a disciple of the popular Dried Mango Charities and turned him down at once without giving him a chance to utter anything beyond his 'Good Morning Sir.' He was left with no choice but to go back his seat and wait for his next victim. Morning grumpiness does come in handy sometimes.

It wasn't, of course, the first time for me to come across the Dried Mango Charities and their questionable solicitation practices. I've had my share of encounters, especially outside restaurants at night and gas stations, where they love to lurk. The DMC members usually hang around the said places patiently and discreetly, avoiding the watchful gaze of security guards to strike precisely when nobody expects them to, brandishing an 'official' letter of solicitation (a laminated card in my case this morning) and a pack of dried mangoes that is priced double or more the actual market value. It's not such a bad deal because you could send a kid to school or build a church this way and eat preserved tropical fruit at the same time, like going to heaven with dessert.

These dubious solicitations have evolved through the years, with kakanin, Zesto and even prayer cards being past favorites. I recall first receiving solicitations in a manner similar to this during the late 90s at - surprise - a fastfood joint (a Wendy's, specifically). Back then, the solicitor wasn't as discreet as she went from table to table with a letter from an orphanage. My second encounter was again in a Wendy's branch, with the brazen bastard silently sitting across my seat (on a table seating only two, no less), laying down his 'official' letter on the table while I was midway through my lunch. He said nothing, not wanting to attract attention to himself lest he gets dragged out like a cat. Peeved but not wanting to pay him any undeserved attention, I merely put on a scowl that Charles Manson would have been proud of and gave him the satisfaction of watching me finish the rest of my lunch before leaving. He flinched not even once until I stood up to leave, at which point he merely transferred to another table to do the same thing to some other poor soul. I can't remember all the instances after that in which I was offered dried mangoes or some other overpriced product with the supposed premise of a charity contribution, although I remember that I kept turning them down appropriately.

If they are legitimate, then you can start calling me Jenna. You have to admire these people for their tenacity though. Their modus operandi requires for them to sit quietly in fastfood joints, stalk gas stations or wait outside late night restaurants for hours with veritably no promise of a sale. Tenacity or no tenacity, I do wonder how they come up with their uniform tactics, specifically why they all have to lug the same products at the same time. Are these guys working for the mob? If so, when did the mob get controlling shares in dried mango production?

There are, I think, many other creative ways to do this thing, and dried mangoes are so 2003. We'll just have to wait and see what conspiracy these enterprising ingenious individuals will think of next, although they should take a hint from the fastfood joints they frequent... they should think of the all-powerful solicitation combo meal (with upgrade preferences): kakanin, Zesto (upsize?) and dried mangoes for 199 pesos, with a prayer card and an anatomically accurate gummi representation of the Pope to boot (let it be known that I thought of this last bit first). It's simply an offer you can't refuse unless you invoke the revered tactic of kicking slippers and mewing randomly. This will attract attention to both you and the DMC disciple, and God willing, this will see both of you dragged out by the collars.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -