Down with Yahoo Address Books
Down with Yahoo Address Books
Once in a while I receive an update on a Yahoo address book: it consists of names of people who went to my high school. I didn’t start that list-oh no, somebody else did. One of the last things I will ever do in this finite life is make a list of people who attended the same high school as I did. I mean, what’s the point of knowing Miss So-and-so graduated thirty-four years earlier than you did? She probably wiped her booger under a different desk, so what’s the point? (Talking of booger, one popular joke in my youth went like, what’s the difference between booger and rice? The stock answer was that people usually put rice on top of the table, while booger was usually placed beneath it. How I would grimace at the narration of this folly.) The only names I shall ever be interested in are those of loonies who sat in the same graduation rites as I did. Naturalmente, such a list is long, with only my multifarious selves printed all over it.
This is true of Everyman.
But there are, in fact, two names other than mine who have, if not drawn my fascination, impelled me to remember. They are Divina and Joselito. They and I finished high school together, but these two innocent beings studied in the lower sections-maybe in different ones-while I was in special class, a fact I now consider perplexing. While I was convinced that I was special, there was nothing to suggest that my confederates in class were equally so, an observation that should have prompted the school authorities to put me in a class by myself.
Now before I turn into a rank replica of the much-reviled Malu Fernandez, let me asseverate that I could not remember ever exchanging a word or two with Divina and Joselito in the four years that we were high schoolers. No. But we did talk in grade school. That was the only time we interacted verbally, maybe because we were classmates.
I remember now why they stand out in my memory today: once upon a time they happened to smother their seats with their leavings, Divina with her urine, and Joselito his feces. Because I did not know a lot of English words at the time, I referred to their residues as simply ihi and tae, respectively. And respectfully we all reacted. Except the teacher, who was suddenly livid with fury. How she erupted into volcanic rage, jabbing a finger in the air and almost tearing her blouse. Which made me wonder whether real volcanoes were teachers too in the geographical scheme of things, who were capable of lashing out at student volcanoes that were not strong enough to contain their volcanic excretions.
We were in the first grade then. The floor under Divina’s chair was suddenly flooded, which caused Miss Omado to hasten to the area of calamity.
“Divina, nahingi kaw? (Divina, did you pee on your seat?)”
“Wara, ma’am [shaking]. . . Wara takun ( Oh no, ma’am. I didn’t. I DID NOT).”
“Ti, sin-o ang nangihi abi kay ikaw man diya ang nakapungko (Hell, then who you think did it. It’s only you who’s been sitting there). ”
“Basta wara gid takun, ma’am. Wara git takun [sobbing] (I swear. I swear it wasn’t me, ma’am. I swear).”
Joselito’s case was less complicated. When it was abundantly clear to everyone that the intoxicating smell was coming from one of the pupils and not from the adjacent toilet, the teacher approached Joselito and asked him firmly if it was him. Cool as a cucumber, Joselito answered in the affirmative. And the rest was supposed to be history. But many witnesses of that day never managed to forget, and so teased the hapless defecator until sixth grade or even in high school-I am not sure. Joselito is a classic case of “You think you’re through with the past, but the past is not through with you.” It was fortunate that his family moved after graduation. I used to believe that was the only reason they moved.
And so that, my friends, is probably the reason I abhor address lists of people of the past who do not necessarily compute in my estimations-they might force me to recall inappropriately, to sin. There was this other girl named Emma who was the daughter of the butcher. She forgot to flush the toilet bowl in grade school one day, and someone found out about it. Beautiful, voluptuous, and rich Emma is privately referred to to this day as Timbol, the Hinaray-a word for hard, well-formed tae, oftentimes a result of indigestion.
Once in a while I receive an update on a Yahoo address book: it consists of names of people who went to my high school. I didn’t start that list-oh no, somebody else did. One of the last things I will ever do in this finite life is make a list of people who attended the same high school as I did. I mean, what’s the point of knowing Miss So-and-so graduated thirty-four years earlier than you did? She probably wiped her booger under a different desk, so what’s the point? (Talking of booger, one popular joke in my youth went like, what’s the difference between booger and rice? The stock answer was that people usually put rice on top of the table, while booger was usually placed beneath it. How I would grimace at the narration of this folly.) The only names I shall ever be interested in are those of loonies who sat in the same graduation rites as I did. Naturalmente, such a list is long, with only my multifarious selves printed all over it.
This is true of Everyman.
But there are, in fact, two names other than mine who have, if not drawn my fascination, impelled me to remember. They are Divina and Joselito. They and I finished high school together, but these two innocent beings studied in the lower sections-maybe in different ones-while I was in special class, a fact I now consider perplexing. While I was convinced that I was special, there was nothing to suggest that my confederates in class were equally so, an observation that should have prompted the school authorities to put me in a class by myself.
Now before I turn into a rank replica of the much-reviled Malu Fernandez, let me asseverate that I could not remember ever exchanging a word or two with Divina and Joselito in the four years that we were high schoolers. No. But we did talk in grade school. That was the only time we interacted verbally, maybe because we were classmates.
I remember now why they stand out in my memory today: once upon a time they happened to smother their seats with their leavings, Divina with her urine, and Joselito his feces. Because I did not know a lot of English words at the time, I referred to their residues as simply ihi and tae, respectively. And respectfully we all reacted. Except the teacher, who was suddenly livid with fury. How she erupted into volcanic rage, jabbing a finger in the air and almost tearing her blouse. Which made me wonder whether real volcanoes were teachers too in the geographical scheme of things, who were capable of lashing out at student volcanoes that were not strong enough to contain their volcanic excretions.
We were in the first grade then. The floor under Divina’s chair was suddenly flooded, which caused Miss Omado to hasten to the area of calamity.
“Divina, nahingi kaw? (Divina, did you pee on your seat?)”
“Wara, ma’am [shaking]. . . Wara takun ( Oh no, ma’am. I didn’t. I DID NOT).”
“Ti, sin-o ang nangihi abi kay ikaw man diya ang nakapungko (Hell, then who you think did it. It’s only you who’s been sitting there). ”
“Basta wara gid takun, ma’am. Wara git takun [sobbing] (I swear. I swear it wasn’t me, ma’am. I swear).”
Joselito’s case was less complicated. When it was abundantly clear to everyone that the intoxicating smell was coming from one of the pupils and not from the adjacent toilet, the teacher approached Joselito and asked him firmly if it was him. Cool as a cucumber, Joselito answered in the affirmative. And the rest was supposed to be history. But many witnesses of that day never managed to forget, and so teased the hapless defecator until sixth grade or even in high school-I am not sure. Joselito is a classic case of “You think you’re through with the past, but the past is not through with you.” It was fortunate that his family moved after graduation. I used to believe that was the only reason they moved.
And so that, my friends, is probably the reason I abhor address lists of people of the past who do not necessarily compute in my estimations-they might force me to recall inappropriately, to sin. There was this other girl named Emma who was the daughter of the butcher. She forgot to flush the toilet bowl in grade school one day, and someone found out about it. Beautiful, voluptuous, and rich Emma is privately referred to to this day as Timbol, the Hinaray-a word for hard, well-formed tae, oftentimes a result of indigestion.