I'm So Mad I Could Kick You Right In The Chest....Right In The Chest.

Try as we might, Andrew and I cannot get the tourism businesses to complete and return our surveys. The whole project is based around the information gathered from these surveys, so their completion is quite important. To make matters worse, yesterday, in the span of thirty seconds, Andrew received a text message from our supervisor indicating that we were to present our findings on the 24^th of February and I received a phone call from Jimmy telling me the same. We went to Honda Bay earlier today to pick up thirteen of the thirty-something surveys and were informed to come back on Saturday. I suspect this means a Saturday, not this Saturday. I also suspect the surveys would be as easily collected if they were on the moon. In short, we are in quite the pickle.

Pickle or not, a few other interesting things have happened around the house over the past few days. I’ll outline three in no particular order:

1) I attended my first Filipino wake. Sadly, the co-owner of Aniceto’s Pension, Tems, died last week. He had a stroke sometime after midnight and was rushed to the hospital but unfortunately nothing could be done. He had suffered massive brain damage from the stroke and died a few days later. Tems was a really great guy. He was always laughing and joking around. He didn’t speak great English, but he always tried to help you out with a problem in any way he could. I had my first drink of Filipino brandy with Tems and another house guest a few weeks after I arrived. The same night I tried my first Filipino delicacy, tamilok (A coconut tree woodworm). The tamilok was terrible but the company was great. My deepest condolences go out to his wife Tess and the rest of his family.

2) I had my first real gigantic drunk on the roof of Aniceto’s. Three Austrians, a Swede, and a Filipino were all having a huge meal and drinking session on the roof. I was talking to a friend on the second floor as they passed by and they invited me to join them. I obliged and it turned out to be a complete disaster. Don’t get me wrong, the company was great. They were genuinely a great bunch of interesting and funny people, but they broke out the Tanduay and ruined my tomorrow. I’m not much of a hard liquor drinker, and probably should stick to beer, but I think the real problem was the method of consumption. We were drinking the rum “Filipino style”, which basically means from a communal mug with chasers of mango juice. I’m used to drinking beer in pretty big mouthfuls. When I do drink liquor it’s either as a shot or in a very weakly mixed drink, not straight from a huge glass. The rum was deceptively smooth and easy to drink, so much that a chaser wasn’t even really necessary. Add big mouthfuls of rum to easy drinkability and you get a gigantic fucking mess. After the fourth bottle (around 1:00 am) I volunteered to get more. Being, 1:00 am, nothing was open, so I decided to approach a bunch of strangers squatting and drinking in the street near the aptly named Squatter’s Village. I figured (correctly) that if these people had booze they could get me booze. I struck up an awkward conversation and got to the nitty-gritty pretty damn quick. After a price was arranged, one of the guys ran into his house and came out five minutes later with two more bottles of Tanduay. I gave him a celebratory high five and was on my way. I got back to the party feeling very pleased with myself. This was the last time I would feel pleased for 36 hours. I woke up the next day and realized some seriously bad shit had gone down in my room the night before. I’m not going to get into the details on this blog, but let me just say that my first trip of the day (6:00 pm that night) was to Lian’s Laundry with a bag of sheets and towels. The shower needed to be thoroughly cleaned and my knee was swollen and purple, probably (definitely) from falling down. Also, one of the Austrians said that on the way into my room I fell into my door and couldn’t find the knob for a few minutes. I’ll have to take his word for that.

Two bottles of poison and a bottle of Coke

3) As I said, the next day was absolute torture. There was one bright point that turned out to be a complete tease though. Later that night, I tested my luck at keeping some food down and failed miserably. I decided to head home from ChowKing and get some more sleep. When I hopped in the back of the tricycle there was a guy riding on the back of the bike with the driver. He kept looking at me and finally asked if my name was Steve. I said no. He asked did I remember him. I said no. He asked if my name was Steve again. I said no. He said his name was Adonis and suddenly I remembered him. He was the guy who drove me home the night I left my vintage Whaler’s hat in the tricycle!

Holy shit!

I told him I remembered him and brought up the subject of the hat. He told me that yes he remembered the hat and yes he still had it.

Holy shit!!

He said he would drop it by tomorrow after work.

Holy shit!!!

The driver pulled up to Aniceto’s, I paid the fare, I said goodbye to Adonis, thanked him profusely, and thought about hugging and kissing him. I went to bed feeling great, the sins of last night washed away in a wave of pure joy.

That was the last time I would ever see that lying bastard. He should be ashamed of himself. If he’s unlucky enough to run into me in the next few weeks I’m going to kick him in the chest and steal his hat, or shoes. Or maybe his sweater, I haven’t decided.

Rest assured: Adonis will get his.