Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, & Miranda in Starbucks

I have found the chance to escape from office pressure and resume my Starbucks life. It's final examination season, anyway, and it's really time for me to hit the books.

As I was busying myself with matters of obligations and contracts, I notice four guys at the counter. At first glance, they didn't strike me as metros (metro sexuals) nor as anything out of the ordinary worth watching and exerting effort for. Two of them were wearing pambahay shirts. One looked as if he just got out of his bed. Another had his beer belly hanging over the waist-line of his cargo shorts, the kind with pull-strings at the end. I

At that point, nothing I noticed was typical or stereotypical of anything worth watching. At most, I remember asking myself why and how trashy people like them prefer Starbucks. They don't fit the description really.

That was until they stationed themselves at the four couches immediately next to my table and started talking.

Their frappucinos came and as they settled themselves, one of them suddenly spewed out, "I feel young when I'm in the south," in a familiar over-enthusiastic, almost all-knowing, pa-coño, effeminate, voice.

I look up from my book, took a glance over my left, and saw those four same guys in a whole new light. The one talking had his back against me so I couldn't see his face (thank God). I swear I saw at least one of them sipping a strawberries and cream frap. And there I had it, I was in the midst of four gay men who did not fit the gay stereotype physically, but were overqualified, audio-wise (and drink-wise).

This guy who started talking about his youth, explained his statement by going on with something like, "…I don't know because here," apparently referring to Parañaque as opposed to some northern Manila location he frequented, "there's less pressure. I could relax more," Yadda, yadda, yadda. These guys went from Piolos to Mojo Jojos. And in terms of Mojo Jojo himself, from level one gay to level five gay.

I found this guy laughable for one thing. He struck me as the type who was trying to impress people with his call-center brand of English. You know the kind. People who feel that they sound coño, but to the ears of others who actually know the difference between proper English and social-climbing English, they just sound foolish.

I often come across and get ticked off by people like gay guy number one. So I didn't really see the point of continuing to listen in his self-serving stories.

A few moments from the last disturbance from gay guy number one, I look up again from my book, because of what I heard, this time, gay guy number two say.

"I need a wallet. Maybe you guys should give me a wallet," said gay guy number to who sat across gay guy number one and whose face escapes my memory. Probably not so presentable, as it was forgettable, by my standards.

"Okay. We'll buy it from Penshoppe," said gay guys number three and four who were sitting to the left of one and two, nearer to me.

Two goes, "Eeew!" and some more statements condescending to the mentioned local brand. Ultimately, he was meaning that he'd rather be caught dead than caught keeping a wallet with a big Bench or Penshoppe logo stamped across the damn thing. "BEH-HENCH…PEH-HEN-SHOPPE…" He said, making his voice bigger and making hand gestures as he described how the big logos would appear on the supposedly icky wallet.

What does this guy think? That he's some socialite who only deserves signature handbags and wallets? (cue montage of DJ Montano)

They began to sound like the girls from Sex and the City who liked to talk about Guccis and Birkins. Problem was, Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha were in New York and were actually socialites, sexy, and hot. And gay guys one, two, three, and four were simply stuck in a Parañaque Starbucks (on a Saturday night), trying to sound socialite-ish, looking (and sounding) ghetto and cheap. They were everything but Sex and the City.

(in picture Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda, and Samantha)

Their laughs suddenly filled the air as all four of them found humor in the Bench/Penshoppe comment. Gay guy two suddenly gets a new idea for a witty comment and spews out, "McJim!" referring to a brand of leather wallets usually sold in bangketas, as gay guy number one put it, and in most mid- and low- end department stores. Alas, they broke into laughter again and all the more louder. Note that this seemingly hilarious episode came from a group of guys who came into Starbucks sporting the same thing they woke up in, brandishing an effortless out-of-bed 'do (naturally oily and spiky, mind you), and most probably wearing the same stench they woke up with.

Enter my two cents. Ano bang akala ng mga baklang ito? Na magaganda sila? Na if they do get LV or Coach wallets that it would look real on them? Eat shi*t, dearies, I say. It's not bagay din naman on you, why have this wishful thinking pa? Irita.

As if intentionally luring me into their conversation (which has turned out to be this week's winner), gay guy two says, "I think I'm going to buy Crocs."

Gay guy one then reacts, "Eew! Yuck! Crocs? Really?"

"Huh? Yeah, Crocs. They look good naman,eh. Especially the new design that they have, they don't look like normal Crocs, they look like shoes…They look good!"

"Crocs never look good!" Exclaims gay guy one. "I swear, if you buy them, I swear, I'd stop being your friend! You're not going to be my friend anymore!"

As gay guy one was proclaiming his hatred of Crocs to the whole left portion of Starbucks, gay guys three and four were giggling and seemingly seconding the motion of gay guy one, in their own discreet manner.

Gay guy one seemed to make a solid argument with his Crocs-equals-no-BFF mantra, that gay guy two suddenly sinks in his couch looking all embarrassed and defeated.

Looks like gay guy two will never get those Crocs, after all, as he might be risking one of the most important friendships he has in his life. Poor number two, for two reasons: One, he won't get the thing that he wants. And two, he gets stuck with gay guy one.

I don't know why these guys pissed me off. Is it because they sounded so trying? Or was it that I owned a pair of Crocs myself? Either way, I hated them.

(in picture: CROCS, gay guy one, apparently his trailer-park, out-of-bed porma is too good for CROCS)

I tried to zone them out of my study space so that I could get on with my review, which I successfully accomplished. I missed much of their conversation. I know that hearing the rest of it would have been enriching for me, but I had to get back with my own business. I have an exam coming up and I had to attend to that first.

I left Starbucks last night, before gay guys one, two, three, and four did. That could've been the last time I would hear from those cheap and gay imitations of Sex and the City's Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha. One thing's for sure, though…if I get to see or hear from them again, I would gladly indulge myself again with listening in to their idiotic conversations, getting ticked off, laughing my ass off, and blogging about it.

Starbucks

A few years back, it was only once or twice a year did I visit a Starbucks, mainly because I didn't drink coffee. And in the few times I did, I ordered my usual classic iced chocolate drink and went into one of my out-of-proportion fits, seeing those people, students apparently, studying amidst the coffee-slurping, english-spewing, idiots Starbucks calls their parokyanos.

"Pa'no naman sila nakakapag-aral nang ganyan? Eh ang ingay? Ako, hinding-hindi ako makakapag-aral in a place like this…"


That was, again, a few years ago. Since then my little statement has turned out to be a hypocritical one.

I don't drink coffee. But I study at Starbucks.

Not only am I a Starbucks parokyano now, I also frequent it to find a good place to *cough* study. And I still don't like coffee. Hehehehe. My own little complex irony, right?





But during my study breaks, I head back to my pathological habit of people watching. This habit I think I acquired from four years of being a kulasa. Hanging out at some in-school tambayan, waiting for other students to pass by, and riling ourselves up in making pintas all those other girls. It was fun and I have since been addicted to it. And Starbucks is just the place to satisfy my addiction. A place that has proven itself to be a haven for people like me, who loves to people-watch, criticize, eavesdrop, and tick ourselves off.

It is always packed with different people, both genuine and genuinely fake, as if intentionally calling my pintasera prowess (it's not so much as being pintasera so much as it's simply being observant, hehehe). Of course, I spend an unreasonable, unadulterated time, pondering on the creatures I watch and their so-called life, as they tell it on Starbucks Channel.






Starbucks. So many people...so little time...for me to watch and "observe" them all.

An Away (ǽ-wai) a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Title being such, it was coined by myself and a couple of officemates to describe the somewhat "odd", to say the least, behavior I have developed during this busy season.

I work in an audit firm. What we call our "busy season" is actually the period right after December 31, approaching April 15, the BIR deadline for filing corporate tax returns. I think it is of an auditor's best interest to put this following tidbit out into the open. Our busy season, in the audit firm I work for, at least, calls for unreasonable overtime hours. Normal eight-to-five employees work over time, I think for two to four hours more after five. Not us. We work a minimum of five hours after five and would go as long as ten, twelve, fifteen…the office AC turns off at night and is turned on again the next day, with our worn-out selves still tinkering with our little calculators in our cramped up workspace. The sunrise sneaks up on us every morning, giving us an alarming reminder that we've spent the whole night working yet we still are not done.

These circumstances, coupled with the diverse personalities I have had to contend with the past months have transformed me to this…an irritable, discontented, war-freak, bungangera. Thus the title. Rarely has a day passed where I didn't have a confrontation of some sort. Palagi akong may inaaway. At some point, I did declare that antagonizing somebody made me high. But now, I admit that being this person has been really tiring.

Maybe I couldn't help but be this way. Anyway, I have always known myself to make a big deal of every little thing. A friend once asked me, somewhat insultingly, how I find time to burden myself with things so petty.

Of course, I looked at myself and found out that, I really do exert more effort than expected in wallowing in how people irritate me: from my friends' complete lack of sense of time to a complete stranger's idiotic fashion choice. I ramble on and on. I rant endlessly. Honestly, I do realize that I don't have to do that. That it's just a waste of time. But, you know, I can't help it. It makes me high? I do it anyway.

This blog is dedicated to my over-dedication to other people's business. It is an attempt to help me vent out excess angst. In the end, I hope I won't need an away (or the Tagalog word for "fight") a day to keep my doctor away anymore.

Join me in my misadventures. Let's whallow in the hilarity of other people's stories, from my standpoint, that is.