Friends, inaanaks and tyanaks

Long-lost friends always have the habit of popping up just when you are so pressed for time you hardly have space to meet them for even a cup of coffee.  But this is really my fault.  If only I lead a normal life…

            An elementary and high school classmate arrived with her family for a fortnight’s visit to these blighted shores of her birth from the happening Dubai where she and her family are now based.  Some of our friends were able to see her last week but I failed to show up.  They’re supposed to go to Subic to par-tay! today, a delightful event I again can not join.  No, I’m not trying to renege on my regalo duties to her firstborn.  It’s just that my wife has already booked me for something else today.

            A month back, this same group met for an all-nighter at a comedy bar.  It was a fun-filled time, albeit a bit subdued because one of the girls brought along her husband.  It would have been riotous had she not.  Still, the night passed so delightfully we decided to do it again.

            Because one of the girls could not go home that night, I invited her and another friend to wait for morning to creep in at the CERV dorm.  We were inebriated enough so there was no more alcohol in our nightcap.  But the stories we swapped were very interesting.

            Among other tidbits, I learned of some things told about me.  For example, someone thought I haven’t graduated from college and made public (in a conspirational tone, I was told) this gross misinformation.  The blabbermouth is someone who still owes me money and who prostitutes himself just to have money to keep up appearances he is the best among us. 

            Well, I wasn’t terribly shocked about the revelation.  The person wronged so many others, and much more terribly, that his badmouthing is the least of his offenses.  It’s probably just his way of compensating for feeling so abandoned all his life.

            For the record, I attended three of the best schools in the country.  I can’t be attending all three while dimwitted, can I?  (The fool, on the other hand, attended a university whose only distinction is not having one.)

            While we are on the subject, I think the best among the graduates of Batch ’88 is this classmate who worked so hard for his education.  His mom worked as a domestic while he worked as a factory worker just to pay his tuition.  Now, he teaches in two large universities and writes for the biggest media network in the country.  He was one of the poorest among us and now is one of the most successful.  And he did not have to sell his soul nor resort to backstabbing to do it.  That’s real success, folks!

            

= = = =

Some weeks back, a former student of mine called me up to ask if I could be one of his wedding sponsors.

            Now, I think I am too young and poor to be a wedding sponsor.  But this is one of the things you don’t decline—ever!  So I said yes.

            So there I was, in my seldom-used barong and feeling so ill-at-ease.  A couple of my other former students also turned up—one looked spiffy befitting the successful entrepreneur he is; one arrived typically late and already typically plastered.

            It was the first time to meet the bride, who turned out to be a doktora.  I say, the bridegroom is tsumamba.  Hahahaha!  (Walanghiya akong ninong!)

            Now, in keeping with how I treat my friends, I’m going to share an anecdote about the bridegroom.  I have had no chance to talk to my new inaanak yet, the doktora, and this is my chance.  She is a new friend anyway and I hope she reads this:

            I was her husband’s short story writing teacher.  I don’t know if it was indicative of how bad I was as a teacher but he submitted a plagiarized story as his own.  The story was my favorite Chinese story, “The Old Fool and the Ugly Mountain” which became more popular as “The Old Fool and the Three Mountains” under Chairman Mao.  I was floored!  How many times have I read that story and discussed it with so many comrades?  So I talked to him and asked him to submit a new story the very next day—a product of his pen and not anybody else’s—and also told him he should expect no higher than a pasang-awa.  To his credit, he did.  And so I passed him—barely.

            Now, Aileen, doktora, inaanak, this is not a smackdown.  It is just my circuitous way of telling you that Nat is sure to commit mistakes in your marriage and family life.  But just give him a day or two, tell him in no uncertain terms what you want to happen, and he just might surprise you and do the right thing.

            Heartfelt congratulations from your ninong.