life's little incidents
Suddenly In Charge
My parents were away for more than a month to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. (Trivia: If they had had children soon after getting married, I would have been 27 by now.) The parental units left me in charge of everything which I thought would be a piece of cake. If I could run several teams in my past corporate life (which seemed a million years ago to me now), I could run a frigging household.
Shit ha, ang hirap pala.
I was running back and forth between our house, the bank, my father's lawyer, my father's accounting firm, bookeeper, secretary blah, blah. I had to pay our utility bills, credit card bills, phone bills, prepare payroll, etc. Add the fact that my father was currently building his beloved garden at the back of our house so we had 15 construction workers planting his beloved mango trees, building his gazebo, making swing sets, concrete benches and all. (No swimming pool because nobody's really interested in swimming.) I swear to God our backyard is going to look like Luneta park.
My dad's supplier of garden soil was a horror story in itself. That woman chased me around with cash vouchers for a month. Bless my poor heart. She terrorized me enough for me to issue her several checks (already pre-signed)and I soon ran out. So I had to forge my father's signature so that I could pay our electricity bill because eating dinner by candlelight alone is not very appealing to me.
Grabe, baptism by fire in the art of doing housewife-ly duties. Haha.
How I managed to keep myself, our two maids, two dogs, 2 birds and 15 construction workers from starving is beyond me. All the while, I had to do project after project after project. My reward for enduring the sheer stress of running our household and my father's financial affairs for more than a month came in the form of something that can be best described by two letters: LV.
LV is in the word LOVE
Nothing beats the feeling of acquiring your first LV bag. To all those who assert that money cannot buy happiness, you just didn't know where to shop sweetheart.
Thank you parental units, I love you forever! I will take it from here, meaning this bag will be the start of a very precious, much-loved, worked-really-hard-for, collection. To say that this new self-proclaimed hobby will be very expensive is an understatement. Browsing through the prices on e-luxury is already giving me mild seizures.
All of a sudden, I am ambitious again. The last time I ever collected anything was two months ago which was a bunch of cheapass air fresheners for my car. Now I want the so-called LV essentials: different kinds of speedies, a lockit, an alma, a trouville. The limited edition bags would have to wait though, very expensive. Unfortunately, I do not have a sugar daddy to fund my luho. Come to think of it, even if I did, I still wouldn't accept such expensive gifts. I'd rather buy my LV on my own thank you very much. I am a smart girl, I have a job, and I know a thing or two about saving my pennies.
So friends, please do not complain if you hardly see me anymore. That only means that I'm working my ass off so that I can buy another LV bag.
One Roomie Down, Three More to Go
My college roommate, Chelo, is getting married next month! When I first heard the news, I frantically texted our roommate, Gwynne.
Me: Gwynne! Our Chelo's getting married! I can't believe it, I want to cry.
Gwynne: That's our Chelo, Marj. Always a surprise.
Why do I feel like it was only yesterday that Chelo and I would suddenly go off to Eastwood and eat at Fazoli's? But our Chelo has met the man of her dreams and she's not letting go! No use in stopping true love, I say.
The wedding would be in CDO and it would also double as a dorm reunion since everyone's flying in to witness the first dato get married. I'm flying in a little early to help with the wedding and bridal shower preparations, that's what roomies are for. We've talked and daydreamed about this day for soooo long, all those Eliazo nights camped out in Gots', Aimee's, Tantan's and Joyce's room a.k.a. The Dato Family Headquarters, dreaming of the perfect wedding dress, the perfect wedding march, the entourage. Now, we're finally here and we can finally execute all those carefully laid out plans so many years ago.
We girls, we're like that. We prepare for our wedding decades before it actually happens.
She's going to walk down the aisle with "Fields of Gold" playing. It's going to take a lot of willpower for me not to cry.
Disappearing Act
The guy, whom we have previously labeled as a jerk and an asshole until he pulled his knight-in-shining-armor stunt in Paseo's parking lot and subsequently redeemed himself to the one millionth power, has suddenly pulled a Houdini on me.
No text, no YM message, no Friendster message, nothing. And we all know how he loves to make his presence known using every mode of communication known to mankind.
So this is fairly odd. Theories over his sudden disappearance are very much accepted.
Two Sentences
I was in Bohol again over the weekend for the Sandugo Festival. And of course I saw man of my dreams, a.k.a. family friend, while we were out clubbing. The good news is that he had no bimbo draped all over him, no female group in varying numbers (and beauty, I might add) swarming around him like flies. He was all by himself, thank you Lord God Almighty. The bad news is that the guy only said two sentences to me:
1. Where's your dad? - I've had three decent conversations with you and each time you ask me this question. If you want to know where my father is, go call him, you have his number. I'm beginning to think you're gay and that you have a crush on my dad.
2. No alcohol tonight? - Is this a rhetorical question? Because I so want to launch into a philosophical analysis of the implications of this question. Or do you want me to tell you straight out that I wasn't drinking because I do not want to become the blubbering mess that I was the last time I saw you in Paseo.
Theories, again, are very much accepted.
The Sad Tale of Two Hot-Headed Siblings on the Road in a Borrowed Car
My brother and I took my dad's new car out for a spin last Saturday. As my brother was negotiating a U-turn, a speeding motorcycle hits the front of the driver's side. Imagine the sheer horror of realizing that despite driving extremely carefully, some reckless driver ends up hitting us and possibly denting the car. We were already perpendicular to the highway, we've cleared two lanes and were waiting to merge with the incoming traffic from the opposite lane. The motorcycle driver could have easily used the two lanes behind us but no, he wanted to make singit talaga.
Add the very tiny detail that my father's new car is a week-old 2007 SLK roadster.
To say that my brother and I threw the fit of our lives would be an understatement. We calmed down a bit after we saw that there we only gashes on the bumper which rubbing could easily cure. Pero if the car had been dented or the headlight smashed, I could have killed a man last Saturday.
The motorcycle driver was violent. He kept saying it was our fault, that he was honking his horn, that my brother was looking at the opposite direction. Yeah, he was looking at the opposite direction because we already cleared the lane you were in, asshole. Of course, he would be looking at the direction of the opposite lane which we were about to enter. Ikaw yung gago na gusto pang sumingit, when you have two lanes all to yourself already.
He was calling us salbahe, telling us that we should pay for the damage to his motorcyle. That's when our tempers flared. Why should we pay for something that was not our fault? If the gashes in the bumper could not be erased by rubbing, a paint job would cost twice as much as his goddamed motorcycle.
We decided to just leave since it was obvious that the longer we stayed, the angrier we would become. As we were about to drive off, the driver approaches us again and taps the window violently. Kami daw ang may kasalanan, dapat bayarin daw namin siya. Then followed a string of insults that I do not care to remember. That's when my brother lost it and challenged him to a fistfight. He was about to throw a punch but stopped himself. We just sped away after that.
You know what was the worst part? The crowd that had gathered all sided with the motorcycle driver. They were jeering us and I actually heard someone say "Gasalig kay dato" and "Gaba kay mga hambugero". It didn't matter that we were wronged by a reckless motorcycle driver, all they saw was two kids in a Benz sportscar. They didn't see the 40 years of blood, sweat and tears, the relentless hard work that my parents logged in, our moving from one city to another in search of better business opportunities, my father working so hard almost to the brink of a heart attack, just to be able to afford a car like that. That hurt the most, to be judged so unfairly for something you have worked so hard for.
So to all the residents, security guards, restaurant eaters, bypassers and usiseros who gathered around our little altercation on A.S. Fortuna St. on July 28, 2007 at about 3:00 pm, who were waiting to gang up on my brother if he punched the motorcycle driver and who called us salbahe, yawa and who were silently wishing that our car was more badly damaged, FUCK YOU. May you never feel the sheer joy and awesomeness of driving a roadster.
Total Cost of Repairs: 100 pesos
Daddy Laughing at our Little Incident: Priceless