Loner

I have always known that I was a bit of a loner.
I don’t like crowds. And I don’t like getting to know people. Especially if they aren’t going to contribute anything good to what I know.
I don’t get curious about other people. I love studying them though. I’m very much content to sit outside and watch them pass by.
But interacting with them is a different subject all together.
In my work I have to work daily.
I don’t have a day off. Which makes me sometimes grumpy. I’m not complaining about the physical work. I love it. The only thing that rubs me wrong is that I have to socialize.
Every freaking day.
Customers could be such a pest.
Especially the ones that needs to converse with someone they know.
They know me. But I don’t know them.
And I don’t want to know them, that’s the problem.
Like this week, I had a customer who was sitting alone waiting for his friend to come. I was just sitting behind the counter minding my own business when he started conversing with me. I didn’t understand a word he said I just gave a well-timed nod and affirmative grunts, subconsciously counting the minutes past by. Seeing a break in the conversation, I stood up and went outside and sat there and just stared at the road for hours.
I’m a fountain of information on first meetings. But that’s it. Long duration conversation like weeks, starts taking it’s toll that I become subdued and sometimes won’t even talk and would just enjoy listening to people around me talk.
If I’m forced to socialize or stay with some other people, I need a day to myself where I need to gather my thoughts.
Like in college, where we had a block section, I had the same classmates for four years that one day everyone of them got on my nerves that I have to excuse myself early from school and took the next day off.
Just to take a break. From them.
And I was never absent before that except when I had the chicken pox.
Or it was also like the time me and Dad was forced in each others company when we were in California. He didn’t have any problems. But I did. Being in his company for weeks without a time or a space just for myself was so tiring. Less than a week I was antagonizing him.
I just want to be left alone.
And to top that we were staying at different places where I had to socialize with relatives I hadn’t seen in ages.
It was a strain on my part. I was excited to get back to the east coast where I was left to my own devices.
Or the time I have to stay in the province… and the only person I could have conversation with was Dad. Within a week, we had a shouting match.
But this work I have now, is a practice on my forbearance.
Who wouldn’t? When weekly, without a miss, you’ll have some guy who would make an hour of your time a living hell?

The Selso Combo

After siege, I went back to work. A little later dad came over in his bike saying he’ll be heading home. Our home is the next block from where my work is resided. It is literally a stone throw away.
I was famished from missing my dinner which is unexplainably five-thirty in the afternoon. I told my crew that now is a good time to eat.
I always finished first.
After I was done eating I went behind the counter and started copying the sales for the day. And check stuffs since we are undermanned, due to the fact that I fired one of my waitresses yesterday.
She was really obnoxious.
Back to the topic.
I was there sitting behind the counter when the door came swinging open.
Lo and behold, the face I wasn’t expecting for a long a while.
Mister Anonymous Man. (Thus, I shall be referring to him henceforth as MAM.)
After seeing me, he swaggered over. Swaggered with a hint of waddling. I can’t described how he walks.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, “I can remember faces!”.
Then he leaned over the counter, put his face forward, smiled and freaking winked at me.
“Oh my, you have the gall to wink at me.” I said with exaggerated surprise. “Dense.”
Then he said his famous lines. “Could I have some beer?”
I was thinking, is this the prelude for him hitting on me again.
“If that is all, no problem. Just sit down.”
Then I called Barag. (The name really describes him perfectly. When he was a kid, he jumped off a bridge. He thought he was one of the Power Rangers. Yeah, I always told him he was the Pink Ranger.)
I ordered Barag to serve the man.
I have no desire to even entertain him.
To hell with the sales.
So, he was given his beer, but MAM has no desire to sit yet.
“I heard that I have some apologizing to do.” He said.
“You do?”, I asked with a wide eye stare. As you can tell I have no intention of helping him easing into an apology.
“They said I have insulted you. I remember everything that happened. But I didn’t do anything insulting.” He explained.
“You would think so, right?”, I asked sarcastically.
“Was I rude to you?”, he asked. Perplexity showing in his face.
“Oh no, you weren’t!” I answered my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Sarcasm must have hit at this point. “What did I do?”, he asked again.
“Oh it’s just that you were very annoying. Then you grabbed my hand. Oh and there’s this small thing about you asking me if I would like to share your table for a price. But that wasn’t insulting, right?”, I said in a rapid fire way but in a calm tone.
“Okay, maybe I don’t remember everything. Pero di yun rason para sabihing titirahin ako!”, he exclaimed. Then he added, “I have a sheriff for a brother if you must know!”
“Titirahin?”, I asked with one eyebrows raised.
“Oo. Titirahin daw ako sa ginawa ko nila Sir Danny (The Bank Manger), Boss Leo (The Kingpin)at ni Engineer (Dad).”, he said hysterically.
I didn’t say anything.
“Tatay mo si Enginner, dabah?”, he asked.
“Yes, but the last time you were here, even after you knew who my dad was, you still didn’t changed your tune.” I said.
“I was trying to make friends.” He explained.
“If you want to make friends, you didn’t have to grabbed their hands. You don’t need to be insulting. And firstly, if you want to know someone, you should do the courtesy of giving your name. Which you evaded the last time you graced us with your visit. All you did was name dropping. And I don’t go crying to my dad, if you must know.” I said.
I don’t have to. My youngest sister does it for me.
“I’m sorry. Okay?” he asked.
I looked at him and said “Okay.”
“No. Really I’m sorry.”, he persisted.
“I said OK.”
And went back to my work.
“Lets shake on that.” He said, extending his hand over the counter.
Looking at his hand I leaned back, “Let’s not. Just take your apology and leave it be.”, I said.
Still insisting that I take his hand, “Why not shake hands?” he asked.
“What good will it do?” I asked. “And I don’t care being touched by men.” I explained without rancor.
“Oh I see. It’s because you are rich and I’m poor compared to you.”, he said heatedly.
My eyes turned into slits. I feel a mad coming on.
“You are being rude. You think this has something to do with financial standing? Did I slapped you in the face for being poor?! Well that’s all you did at me from the start.”, I ranted.
My crew, who always see me as a happy-go-lucky and never serious even at work, drew the man away from me when they saw my expression.
Sure, I had pounded a man before with my fist.
But I was drunk back then.
And he had it coming.
“Alam ko naman na langit ka at ang lupa ay..”, he started again.
“Shut up.”, I could feel my face heating up. I was really mad. I really want to hurt him. I was ready for getting physical.
Then cook forced him to sit again at his table, where he did nothing but stare at me. Which he did for a long while.
Annoyed I glared at him.
Then he winked at me again.
“What’s your problem?”, I asked in a biting tone.
Taking this as a cue that we are on speaking terms again he came over and asked if he could order another beer.
Not answering him, I called Barag.
“Looking at you I can definitely say you’re rich and you do traveling, right? Being Chinese you must have visited Korea, your homeland…”, He carried on.
What a dunce.
“Do we have to do this?”, I asked him. I was past my endurance.
“Do what?”, he asked.
“Talk. You have nothing better to say. And I don’t have anything to say to you. This conversation is moot. So go away.”, I said.
My cook dragged MAM and settled him down at his table. Barag stood in front of me, so me and MAM can’t see each other.
We stayed like that for a couple of minutes. The man was telling Cook his sob story of him being hunted for punishment from last time.
Then when he was finished he went over to me again. I scooted my chair out from his radius. Seeing my blatant gesture, he ask how much was his bill.
I just sat there and glared.
Cook said he owes us fourty-six for the beer.
Not taking his eyes off me he said to Cook, “I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to her.”
Cook choked back a laugh.
Wanting it to be done and over with, I answered his question.
Then he made a great show of opening his belt bag and pulled out a wad of money .
Seeing the lone dollar, I had a vision.
He put the dollar at the table. “Here’s a dollar. Keep the change.”, he said gallantly.
Predictable.
“Fifty-two sixty.” I said. Converting the amount to pesos.
“Yeah, you could keep the change.” he said again.
“Look, obviously you’re richer than I am. So why don’t you just pay me in pesos easy?”, I said.
“But I don’t have enough change.”, he whined.
Jimmy at this point, who was standing where I was sitting, must have reach his limit.
“Sir, just pay up.”, he snapped.
“Why the hurry?”, MAM asked.
“You’ve been here for a while and you won’t pay nicely. You need to give us a dollar when you have a lot of money in our currency.”, he explained.
Which at this point I stood from my chair.
Looking at me and Jimmy, MAM said to Jimmy, “You’re just jealous!”.
“Of course he is.” I interrupted. “The guy loves me.”
Wasn’t sure if I was being sarcastic or stating a fact. The man looked at Jimmy and snorted. “It’s just because your tall. That’s why you can act that way.”, he said to Jimmy.
“Of course.” I said looking down at him. “With my height, do you really think I would prefer someone smaller?”
“There’s cook. He’s smaller than you. Wanna take him on?”, Jimmy said pointing to Kuya Bong.
Thinking about it, he asked “How much do I owe you?”

Later when I got home, I called Dad to fetch me by the gate where Barag will be dropping me off.
Later when he asked me why the need to fetch me, I told him about the same man last who harassed me last Christmas.
“Why didn’t you call me then?”
“From the last time you reacted, er no.”
“Why didn’t you call Danger?”
“And what good will Kuya Danger do?”, I asked.
“Beat him of course.”, Dad answered like I was stupid.
“Er, right. The man said something like that to effect. About you, Tito Danny and Tito Leo gonna gang up on him.”
“Who is he anyway?”
“ I don’t know. He think he’s a hotshot because he has a brother who’s a sheriff in this town.”
“He said that? Ha! I’ll have that sheriff beat him, himself. I’ll find him tomorrow and I’ll handle it. Don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry about it…
I suddenly had a flashback. I can still picture it perfectly. When I was a kid, I watched my dad beating the hell out of some man. My mom was holding me and there was a large crowd of people watching.
The man was begging my dad to stop. But my dad just keep on going.
It all begun when I innocently asked my mom, “Mom, do you know that man?”
After looking at the man. “No why?”, she asked.
“I though he’s an uncle. That’s why he keeps putting his arms around me when I was swimming down by the river.”, I explained.
After hearing that. Mom stalked off.
Even at that age, you have an instinctive feeling when you are violated and when something isn’t right. And the man who was keep on hugging me to his body didn’t feel right.
Later she dragged me to the riverbank and ordered me to watch the man being beaten up.
But even though he deserved it, I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault.
That’s why I don’t like crying off to my dad.

The next morning, I was eating breakfast at work when my dad came in.
“Found him. It’s true that his brother is a sheriff. I think he isn’t right in the head.”, Dad said.
“I know.”, I said.
“The sheriff, his brother, learned what happened and beat him up. I was there at their place a while ago. His brother said that he should consider himself lucky that I didn’t shot him on the spot. What’s for breakfast?”, Dad asked.
“Cook is still cooking my egg Club-Sandwich.”, I answered polishing off my soup. “Want one?”.
“Maybe later.” After spotting Jimmy. “Jimmy! Next time you see the man come in here, bring Danger and beat him up. His brother said it’s okay.”
“Sure.” Jimmy said.
And I sat there picturing MAM getting pounded. Checking my conscience, I figured I won’t be loosing sleep about this.

Update

I’m almost at the ends of my wits. Less than a month I’m ready for bedlam.
Okay. There are good days and there are bad. But goodness, those days are balanced by my bored days.
Hell. Everyday, I do the marketing. I’m developing muscles.
On my calves.
People at the market knows me already. Tricycle loves me. I’m like a coveted passenger. Ha!
They know me and they know where I’m heading. I also have a feeling they keep time where they know when I’ll be coming out of that alley in the market.
Everybody “madams” me to death.
Someone always ogles at me. Either because they have never seen a woman or I’m whiter than they are or maybe I still wear weird clothing.
But base on the whistles I hear could be that they never seen a naked belly before or arms.
This entry on my blog sucks. It’s just I’m so bored that I’m trying to type everything that’s coming out of my head.
I lost some money yesterday. I lost some games on tong-its. That and an old doctor who keep on getting the “hits” even though he wasn’t supposed to . And at the end of the accounting for yesterday’s sale, I also found out we are short of money.
One of my waitresses is mental. Totally. She’s more mental than me.
Topic jumping. My thoughts aren’t going in a coherent direction.
And for three days, we’ve been invaded by a swarm of flies. And not just the small flies. The big ones where they are so juicy and slow that by just walking with your mouth open wide, you could catch them.
But before that, after a rainy night, the next morning when we came in maggots where crawling all over the place.
It’s like hell. White crawly worms crawling all over you to munch on your skin. Ewwww.
Gas tanks prices rocketed up again.
Trying to take multi vitamins. I have loose hair everywhere. Virgin coconut oil is still disgusting even with a banana flavor.
Stopped eating banana.
I think one of my waitresses has a Lester complex.
And there is this lady by the name of Noli who keeps on hounding me about the pork she left on my freezer. I don’t give a damn about her pork. Anyway I told her if she wants to get paid she better ask dad. But of course, she doesn’t want to. She owes us money. For stealing the sales of our soda store two years ago. She’s an annoying bitch. At that time, dad has a feeling that she’s stealing us blind that he ordered us to take stock, sales and inventory everyday. Of course when we do this daily task, she just sits there and frowns at what we do. Always answering with a bite. Now she’s asking me to pay, I hope she feels what it felt to be left unpaid.
Aeon by the way has still a huge appetite.
Ate Rose is such a pain in the ass these days.
Well she was always been a pain but these past few months she’s getting worse. Since she had her “Marvin”. She never does household chores anymore. Actually the house is a mess. Shit everywhere. Figuratively and literally. Almost everyday she and her lover sits by the gate and do godknowswhat until well past midnight . And still leaving the house in shit. Last time I was home, I swore a blue streak while cleaning the place at the back. And she wasn’t there to curse at. She was in Pangasinan with loverboy, visiting his family.
Loverboy is younger than her. More malleable, right? She feels if she didn’t get married right away she won’t be getting married at all. That’s no way to base a marriage on.
And she expects to keep on working with us even after she gets married.
Ha. I guess I’m just disappointed with her. I really thought she could do better than that. But alas, I was let down by the thing she called “love”.

Repel This

“Dad someone is looking for you.” I told dad over my cellphone.
“Who?”, he asked.
“RCBC. Something about an extinguisher being repelled.”, I explained.
“It’s late. I’ve been waiting for them this morning. Tell them I’m not here.”
Here, being a 60 meters walk from where I’m standing. I was at the restaurant. Dad was at his base behind the restaurant, a stone-throw away, playing cards the whole day.
“Okay. Fine. This is annoying dad.”, I said hanging up.
Then the phone at the restaurant rung.
“Yes?”, I said.
“What did Engineer say, Mother?”, the guy from the RCBC asked.
“I don’t know, haven’t contacted him yet. And this is not his mother. This is his daughter.”, I explained.
“Oh. We will be heading there. We have no place to keep this extinguishers.”, The RCBC said.
“Er, this is the restaurant. The lumber is already closed.”
“Yes. We will be heading there. Wait, you need to talk to the man who knows this.”
“Okay.”, I said.
“Hello Ma’am.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be leaving here for there.”
“What are your plans?”
“We are going to leave this two repelled extinguishers there. It cost P1,350.”
“But I don’t have that money.” I said. I do. But this is not my problem.
“Okay we’ll be heading there so we can talk.”
“Fine.”
I marched to the terminal, where dad was playing tong-its.
“Dad. They’ll be coming over. They are gonna leave the extinguishers there.”
“Okay. How much.”
“P1,350”.
“What?! They told me it’s just P750.”
“This is two extinguishers, dad.”
“ Here, just pay them P750. I’m not going to take the other one.”
Sighing I took the money and went back to the restaurant.
Where they caught me.
“So what did your dad say?”
“He’s gonna take just one. Is that okay?”
“That means, we will be bringing this back to Dagupan. Next time you get this it’ll be more expensive.” The extinguisher man said.
“I don’t know. That’s just what dad ordered. He just said one.”
“Yes, but the next day, one of your man went to the bank and brought another one to be repelled.” RCBC man said.
“Oh you mean refilled?”, now understanding their accent.
I just gave a annoyed sound, dug out my phone and called Dad.
“Dad, Kuya Tony brought another extinguisher at the bank the following day and you didn’t know.”, I said as a greeting.
“No. I just…”
Cutting off dad. “You talked to him.” I said to the RCBC man, handing him my phone.
I went to the cashier box and took some money.
“Your dad said okay.”
“Yup. He just needs you to explain it.” Handing RCBC the money.
“He’ll be giving you your receipt.” RCBC said referring to Fire Extinguisher man.
“Okay”, I said following them outside.
There was this lady inside their delivery vehicle writing the receipt.
“What does Three N One means?”, she asked me.
“My dad named it. Three current paramour and one ex-wife.” I answered deadpanned.
The extinguisher man was standing on my left. He was looking at me. So I looked back. His eyes are medium brown. And he was good looking.
Ha.
“You’re Chinese.”, he said.
“Yes.” I answered and ignored him. I was waiting for the lady to finish my receipt.
“Wo Ai Di (I love you).” He said to me.
All the Chinese words I know could be summed in one phrase.
Piao Si (Fuck you).
I scooted a little to his right.
“Wo Ai Di” He said again.
I just keep on ignoring him.
“Here we go.” The lady said handing my receipt over.
“Thanks.” I said.
“Single or Double.”, the man said.
Curious. “Single or double?”, I repeated.
“Are you single or not?”, he asked.
“That kind of girl,” the lady said “she has to be single.”
What kind?
“Yes I’m single.” I said and crossed the street.
On the other side, the man asked loudly “Could I have your number?”
Not looking back, “Dream on.” I answered just as loudly.

GKNB

This is a story of a really pretty girl I know who passed the board exam in a single try.
She was one of the easily prettiest candidate for a beauty pageant here in our town that she became instantly the darling of the crowd.
In the question and answer portion, there were two rounds.
When she was called forth the audience went into frenzy.
One of the panel of judges raised her resume’ and said, “It says here that you like to paint.”
“Yes, sir.” She readily answered.
“What do you like to paint?”, the same judge asked.
“Nude, sir.” She said.
“Why nude?”, same judge.
There was a second of silence. “Um… umm… umm.”, she stammered then she answered, “Because I like painteng of the nudeng in the eveneng.”
And the crowd goes wild!
“Ay eng-eng!” someone screamed.
Second round of question. Another judge.
“If you’ll lose one of your senses what do you prefer?”
She struck a pose and answered, “Sense of humor sir!”.
The judge taking pity on her explained… “sense of hearing, sight, smell…”
For an answer, she stuck out her left hand and made a chopping motion by her elbow and answered loudly on the microphone, “Sense of hand, Sir! Thank you!”
After that she didn’t show at school for days.
The following year, she tried participating in an another pageant.
Fortunately, she was given the same question.
“What if you need to remove one of your senses. What would you like it to be?”
Confidently she answered, “Common sense!”