Last New Year's Eve, my entire family was locked out of our house. For over an hour.
Maybe I should explain.
As far as holiday traditions go, my nuclear family probably has the simplest ones. For the last few years, we just open a bottle of champagne and don't even bother cooking anything for media noche. There is usually bread of some sort, and maybe some fruit (well, there is ALWAYS a fruit in the house ... wink wink ...), and definitely leftovers from the entire season of food. For entertainment, we go out on the street and watch our neighbors' fireworks (which, I have to mention, has been getting bigger and better and louder, so much so that when I took a video this year, all you could hear on playback is my frightened screams of 'OH MY GOD!').
Oh wait. I have proof ... of my cowardice.
Sorry about the wires. I was pretending they could shield me.
Last year was no exception. After forcing ourselves away from the TV/bed, my parents, little (?) sister Mia and I went outside just before 12 AM to check out the explosions and such.
It was nice. Loud booms and ringing bells and clanging gongs (yes, gongs) and semi-irritating horns. Sparkly fountains of color through the haze. 'Tangled'-like lanterns pretending to be nearby planets (see vid below – I obviously just found out you can upload YouTube vids on Blogger and am going embed-crazy).
If you haven't seen Tangled, get to it. It's fantastic. Hi Zachary Levi.
Then we all had enough and headed back to the house. And that's when we discovered the locked door.
To this day, no one knows exactly what happened. Who was the last person to exit and possibly mindlessly lock the door before stepping out? Could've been me (maybe I needed new blog topics), could've been any other sleepy person with me that night. Allegedly, the door locked itself sometimes but I have trouble believing that because ... how the hell???
The upside is we have proven to ourselves that our house is EXTREMELY, FRUSTRATINGLY difficult to break into, especially given that zero members of the family are international spies or savage criminals (this is only an assumption). My window-grill–obsessed architect father had successfully protected all of the possible ways to insert a fully grown human into the existing openings. Even if the house keys were on top of a table 6 feet from the windows (they weren't), there were also no fishing poles or extendable clamps in sight.
Just to be clear: There have never been any fishing poles or extendable clamps in our house in my lifetime.
Thankfully, my dad kept a small set of assorted tools near the garden (which, like us, was also outside the house). After many unsuccessful attempts at using the garden shears, a hammer and chisel, a screwdriver, and other tools I can't remember now, dad decided that the best item to use was an old, rusty ax. So my poor father spent the first hour of 2012 hacking away at the ridiculously sturdy doorknob.
This was the aftermath:
You could say these were ... *puts on sunglasses* ... axed out. HHHYYYEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!
The victim.
After over an hour that felt like a whole year (we should've checked if the fireworks were restarting), we were finally able to sit down at the dining table, drink some much-needed alcohol and laugh feebly at the first misadventure of 2012.
Last night, the final night of 2012, I reminded my parents to leave the door just slightly ajar as they exited to watch the fireworks. Dad, on the other hand, had other ideas. And possibly a trauma-filled memory of last year's fiasco.
And so:
Dad: McGyver. Me: Giving away age by using McGyver references.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
May we all learn from our mistakes and remember to never completely close the door.
(Unless you have valuables in the house or something. Then that would be just foolish.)
It's been said that people come into our life for a reason, but (and maybe this part isn't said quite as often) GOOD LUCK on figuring it all out, suckerrrr!!!
Obviously, I have issues. (And a postmenstrual headache.)
I think that, after a gross oversimplification of my life, I've identified some of these reasons. The reasons range from the deep and complicated ("to make me grateful and hopeful" or "to make me stronger and wiser") to the elementary yet necessary ("to make me lasagna").
Importantly, some people are in my life just so I could laugh. And laugh hard. Laugh-like-you-don't-need-your-lungs-tomorrow kind of hard. Not the polite kind of laugh you reserve for new acquaintances and awkward questions ("Why don't you have a boyfriend?" "Hehehe." or "When are you getting married?" "Hahaha." or maybe "Is Santa real?" "Hohoho.").
*Ten points for unexpected but lame season-relevant joke*
Thanks to all these people, I've laughed a lot in my adult life. With these people, I've laughed until we couldn't breathe, until we had to pee, until some of us had to use an inhaler (you know who you are), until we couldn't drive, until our cheeks cramped, until our laps hurt from all the self-thigh-slapping.
I've blogged about many of the moments that have entertained me over the years, but thankfully, there are still a few more left to document before age-related memory loss takes over.
One particularly laugh-y night with three of my girlfriends from my college years stands out not because I remember it easily, but because we've told the story so many times to anyone who would care to listen. Two of these friends, Bong and Pia, were the same girlfriends with me that night I saw Ronan Keating. (The third friend, Glen, still hasn't forgiven us for leaving her out that night.) (Sorry again, Glen.)
So we were all in Bong's car, listening to our then station of choice, Crossover 105.1 FM (I still like this, by the way). And then our all-time-favorite song came on.
All of us after hearing the first few notes: AAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!
We were all beside ourselves with giddy excitement, and I'm pretty sure at least three of us were getting ready to sing along (ehem, were you getting ready too, Pia?), when suddenly, while she was still in mid-AAAAAAYYYYYY!!!! ...
... Bong changed the station.
SHE. CHANGED. THE. RADIO. STATION.
Glen (angry): Bakit mo naman pinalitan!?! (Why did you change it!?!)
Bong (still excited): Eh baka may mas maganda! (There might be something better!)
AHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!
Needless to say, that was one of those times when we couldn't stop laughing and Bong probably had to stop driving. That part I don't quite recall because it happened about 20 years ago and we usually stop the story after the punchline. What I do remember is being happily out of breath and thinking Bong probably had a problem with commitment.
(Note to Bong's husband: She doesn't.)
I realize now that this story is one that will never be as funny to other people as it was to us four, but I guess that's why I had to share it: so at least four people will be snickering to themselves after reading this, and at least four people will listen to that YouTube clip from start to end. And probably even play it again a few more times.
And maybe, if Christmas miracles are real, Pia will very loudly sing along.
Post-tennis: Mama and some weird chick with a Rafa cap
Every Saturday morning, I wake up at the ungodly hour of 5 AM (or thereabouts) so I can play tennis with my parents and their friends. I have been joining this group for a while now, and I'll be the first to admit that one of the reasons I like this particular group is because I am the youngest member. This helps me cling on to every last minuscule drop of my fading youth. Sadly, in this group, age often seems to be directly proportional to tennis skills. My 82-year-old tennis friend who has undergone multiple-bypass surgery has a better forehand and the most frustrating drop shots.
After one morning tennis session, Mama and I went to the ladies room to change into clean shirts. I'm pretty sure we were the only two people in the room, and Mama immediately entered what I shall henceforth label stall #1. A minute later, I entered stall #2.
(Now I'm questioning the utility of numbering the stalls. And using the word 'henceforth'.)
While we were both still inside our respective stalls, I heard another lady (I assume she was female, given that we were in the ladies room – I'm smart that way) enter stall #3 ...
... and she proceeded to ... let's say ... unload mightily.
And by 'unload', I mean poop.
Just to be clear.
The peaceful and sanitary quiet in the room quickly became a heavy, tension-filled, olfactory nightmare, which was extra stressful for me because, while we all had to bear the stench coming from stall #3 (Aha! The purpose of numbering!), I had a feeling that Mama did not know that a third person had joined us.
Just as I suspected, from stall #1 came the resounding:
"May ginawa ka bang masama???"
(Translation: "Did you do something evil?!?")
Mama's accusation, which was obviously playfully directed to me, hung over the three stalls like a horrifying echo that bounced across the cold tiles and enveloped me, the accused, and lady in stall #3, the unfortunate culprit/victim.
Weighing all the possible next steps, I had no choice but to turn to stone. After all, what else was there to do? Should I have replied out of courtesy? "No, clueless mother. A stranger who can undoubtedly hear both of us is causing the air pollution."
I stopped moving and breathing (useful, given the current odor) and waited until I heard the frantic escape of stall #3 occupant from the toilet. I doubt that any handwashing transpired in those crucial moments of flight. Not that I blame her. Getting out of an awkward situation trumps personal hygiene.
And that was when I exited my stall and saw my mother nonchalantly combing her hair as though no embarrassing incident had transpired.
"You do know that it wasn't me, right?"
"How was I supposed to know there was someone else?"
And that was that.
The moral of the story: Never assume ... especially about ass-related issues.
I don't know if Martina has been terrorizing her Grade 1 classmates, but one of her Tatay's latest stories worried me a bit.
Allegedly, Martina goes up to her classmates and asks them,
"Are you going to get married? Or are you going to just WANDER AROUND??!!"
Waaaaiiiit.
If we must analyze this mutual exclusivity in her mind (and we must, naturally), then we have to go a step further and ... make it about me. After all, who else does she have as role models for being non-married? Well there's me from her Mom's side, and from her Tatay's side, Tita Rachel and Tito Perry.
When I first heard the 'wander around' story, I was quite amused – and jazaleetol slightly offended – that Martina could have been implying that I was going through my life without purpose or direction. Then something happened that made me reconsider the truth of my niece's insinuation.
Martina's only uncle, Tito Perry, passed away last month. He was only 48.
Although we were not related, every now and then I still have inexplicable heavy pauses, times when I shake my head and wipe away a stray tear from the disbelief that someone so good has continued to exist. Although the idea of death might never be clear to me, this particular passing has reminded me of something I probably learned once or twice but never really fully believed: I am here for a reason.
After he died, much has been revealed about Perry's generous spirit. Numerous anecdotes about his selflessness and kindness as a friend or lawyer have warmed his family's grieving soul throughout the past few weeks. As for me, I have discovered that Perry DID wander around after all.
Father Johnny Go summarized it best in the homily he delivered during Perry's funeral mass:
"... Perry would always walk around the village either early in the morning or at night after dinner. These walks allowed him to interact with—and befriend—the household help, drivers, and security guards in the neighborhood. In fact, one neighbor learned of his death only from their driver!
When these neighborhood friends heard about his passing, they said they would surely miss him, especially the guards because according to Jesse, Perry used to hand out beers to them!
But more than the socializing, Perry would go out of his way to help those in need. Once he spent an entire day helping the husband of a household help get out of jail."
Maybe wandering around was Perry's real vocation.
Maybe the only real vocation is to be kind to people we meet in our wanderings.
Maybe Martina did not mean to accuse – maybe she meant to challenge.
Or maybe I'm just sad, and really need to put this down in writing:
Bye, Tito Per. Thank you for making my Dad happy by bringing him his favorite Chinese snacks. Thank you for helping him with his contracts and whatnot. Thank you for making my niece and nephew laugh so much. Most of all, thank you for always saying I looked like I lost weight even when the opposite was true. I hope you don't get into trouble in heaven for that. We will all miss you, Tito Per!
