LET’S START with this idea: I am not big on food.
I eat healthy.
Occasionally, I binge.
If I go to a buffet restaurant, you can be sure I’ll get my money’s worth.
Or, your money’s worth, if you are paying.
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But I do not need buffet restaurants.
I sometimes go only to remind myself that I can afford a buffet restaurant if I want it.
I also don’t need restaurants or fine dining.
But occasionally, somebody takes me.
And I’d go if I’m not paying.
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Occasionally, there’s a boy to impress.
And if he promises to be worth it, I splurge on hotel dining.
Sometimes, the straightest way to a boy’s ass is through his stomach.
But personally, I’ll be okay if I don’t see fine dining ever again.
I’m okay with turo-turo food.
I’m okay with tinanok nga saging.
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Which brings me to this: I do not worry where my next meal is coming from.
I know I can afford to buy whatever, wherever, whenever, I want.
And in Dumangas, I don’t even have to carry money when I go around.
People naturally feed me.
And I sometimes think (deluded, or not) that people are happy, and proud to feed me.
But I have my favorite go-tos.
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There’s this elderly couple whose daughter was a high school classmate.
My classmate is now working in Canada.
And she asks me to go visit her old folks when my schedule allows it.
And she instructs them to cook laswa for me because that’s what I said I like.
She also tells them to cook and serve filleted bangus, and let me have my way with the fatty fish belly because that’s what she thinks I like.
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The old folks like me a lot because I indulge them.
I listen to the stories they have told a hundred times.
I am patient with old people that way.
Do I really take to heart everything they say?
No, because I already understood them the first time they told me.
But I don’t talk down to them.
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I play a good psychotherapist to the old people.
I let them verbalize their hopes, fears, anxieties, insecurities, and routine concerns.
And I listen to their health concerns like a good nurse.
I assess their gait, their skin condition, their mentation.
I review what their last doctor’s recommendations said.
That’s how I earn my free meal.
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Then, I have this retired teacher, an old maid, who was maldita when she was younger.
And she still talks maldita.
But I talk back maldita to her.
Like gay maldita.
I think she enjoys our verbal tussle.
She lords it over her household every day.
So I think she enjoys my occasional visits, and how I dominate her with my wit and smarts over coffee.
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On my “feeling hungry” days, I invite myself to lunch, or breakfast, at my godmother’s.
She’s 75, or something. Also unmarried.
Had polio since she was little.
But worked in the US for a good 20, or 30 years.
I’m not sure that I am the only godson who ever visits her.
But it is very likely.
That is why she’s always so happy to feed me.
Even her house help is so happy to feed me!
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Sometimes, when my godmother is not up to sit down for a meal, I would sit on the edge of her bed while the help prepares my food.
The help knows what tea I like so she opens gate for me, and proceeds to prepare my tea.
I go straight to my godmother’s bedroom announcing my own entrance, whether she’s dressed, or not.
Sometimes, I feel guilty that my godmother lavishes me with food like it’s my last meal.
There’s always at least three kinds of viand to go with rice and fruits.
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But I’m thinking, my godmother is over 75.
She’s handicapped; I’m visiting her.
She can afford to feed me, so I’m eating well.
I don’t insult food by being picky or choosy.
In times of scarcity, I’ll do with boiled camote.
In times of abundance, I wouldn’t require some poor folks’ food that’s not already on the table.
Lechon when it happens, I always say.
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There’s also this recently widowed “auntie”.
I call her auntie because she’s the wife of some distant relative who was always quick to trace my Divinagracia roots in Dumangas.
She always thinks of me as her Home Economics student in high school.
But in most likelihood, she taught one of my siblings.
I remember her as the dainty mestiza head teacher of the Technology and Home Economics department in the early 1980’s.
Having also lived in America for a while, she feeds me healthy in exchange for small talks and memories of my late distant grand cousin.
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And again, this is how I work for my free meals in the Philippines:
I minister to the elderly, the widows, and the old maids ─ mga tigulang, balo kag laon.
Along the way, they think I’m an angel.
Because I let them, some people think I’m a saint! (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
