Longganisa: Why women should come with manuals

I look around and survey the crowd as I sit and wait for Nisha to get back from ordering breakfast from the counter.I’m a poor judge of age but I find it interesting that the people you come across with on Sundays are oddly old. McDonald’s Katipunan is no exception. I caught myself trying to stereotype most of the people in the fast food joint as a bunch of rich, old Chinese folk; taking their time, nonchalantly reading the morning paper over a cup of black coffee. There’s also a group of guys I take as college varsity basketball players and a bunch of very chic teenage girls who look like they’re here to sober up from all the partying and hard drugs they had on last night’s gimik.

“Nix!� I yell from over my table. She turns around scanning the restaurant trying to figure out where I was. She spots me ducking under a table near the door trying to hide. She puts her hands on her waist and pouts in an oh-so-cute way.

“Hash browns.� I mouth to her. The best thing about Nisha is that she never takes dating decorum seriously. Of course, she finds it charming that I open doors and pull up chairs for her occasionally; but most of the time she insists on doing things herself. Things like falling in line and ordering in fast food joints like this one, carrying her bag, driving and basically doing all the stuff that requires more than 20 kilojoules of effort. Chivalry is dead my friends.

She can be quite the graceless klutz sometimes though as she’s exhibiting now by doing her best impression of a baby learning to walk while carrying a tray full or breakfast treats. She spills half of my coffee on the tray before finally arriving on the table.

Nisha’s having soda with her longganisa meal.

“That’s sick.� I say as I take the sloppily wrapped Egg Mcmuffin from the tray.

“What?�

“Soda at 7:00am. You know, I almost died the last time I had soda this early.�

“Fuck off!�

“Shhh! Not everybody’s as awake as us.� I remind her blowing into my cup and taking a sip of what’s left of my coffee. I warily glance around and sure enough, at least four old bats were darting strange looks over at our table. ‘Look at the cute young couple over at that table darling, remember when we used to be as sweet as them?’

I kind of stare them down, giving them a dirty look that is, without a doubt, augmented by my current state of sleep deficiency. ‘Why yes, we’re Mickey and Mallory Knox. We’re cute young lovers with foul mouths and a penchant for random violence. If you watched enough Tarantino movies, you know it’ll serve you best to go back eating your sausage and omelets before you irk THIS young couple and make us decide to draw our semi automatics on you and pump lead into your collective asses.’

“I shit you not.� I continue “I was rushed to the emergency room. I know it wasn’t anything serious but at that time, the general serenity of the hospital staff along with the flickering fluorescent lights and Louis Armstrong singing ‘What a wonderful world’ in the background made me feel like I was about to die.� I said taking a huge bite off my egg mcmuffin.

“What happened?� she asks wrinkling her forehead.

“Jesus, I spewed more shit out my ass than Mount Vesuvius spewed lava.�

“Eww! Mike! Overshare!� She says threatening to spear me with her fork. “And all of this was because you drank soda early in the morning?�

“That’s my theory. It was a miracle really, I mean my being pulled from the jaws of death like that. Shit, even the doctor didn’t have any clue as to what strange sickness I had.�

“Did you ever find out?�

“The doctor said it ‘must be a virus’, which must hold some sort of record for the lamest medical diagnosis in the history of mankind. He looked terrified though; he looked like he wanted to run to the nearest bomb shelter and call in a nuclear strike to purge the world of my mysterious Martian death virus.�

Nisha was laughing hysterically and after a while I found myself laughing too which is weird since I’m not very big on laughing at my own jokes. We’re starting to gain the attention of our old geezer fans again but who can blame them? I mean it’s practically normal for people to laugh over bottles of beer, But over longganisa and egg mcmuffin?

Nisha was still laughing, in fact she was laughing so hard that tears started to streak down her cheeks. “Boy is it that funny Nixie? I should rethink my career and get myself into comedy.� I said handing her my handkerchief but she sort of pushes my hand away, grabs her handbag and runs out the door.

I sit there nonplussed, playing with the plastic stirrer of my coffee for a good twenty seconds or so; I was waiting for my brain to process what just happened. She cried! What the fuck did I do? Was it something I said? Holy fuck. It’s instances like these that I wish women came with a fucking manual. Chapter 22 page 451: “When a woman starts crying for no obvious reason at McDonalds� This is a phenomenon that has no solution as of date. It’s only one of the myriad of weird random things that seem to happen to women. Giving her 3,000 pesos and taking her to the mall might diffuse the situation. If it’s too early for the mall, wait at your table and hope that she returns.

I decide to wait for a couple of more minutes but I started to worry when she didn’t come back. I took one last bite of egg mcmuffin and took a lot of napkins. If you decide to run after her take a lot of napkins, you’ll never know when you’ll need them. Also just in case, see Chapter 41: How to say sorry and ensure continued sexual bliss. Good luck lover boy!

I peer into Nisha’s car when I got out into the parking lot. She wasn’t there. I started to walk back in and wait for her when I see her walking briskly to the direction of Aurora Boulevard. “Nixie! Come on! What’s going on?� I yell after her.

Hey! What’s wrong?� I said grabbing her by the arm, finally catching up with her.

�Nothing. I’m okay now. I just needed to breathe.�

“Nixie, What’s wrong? Was it something I said?� I said with a sterner tone.

“It’s nothing Mike, it’s part of the emotional rollercoaster shit girls undergo that you won’t be able to understand.� She said wiping her tears subtly with her hand.

“And what about that ‘friends among anything else’ bit we’ve been talking about?� I said putting an arm around her forcing her to a stop.

“It’s a lot of things Mike. I’m turning twenty-two in November and both my younger sisters have better relationships than me. I just realized how I’m sacrificing a lot of things trying to balance everything; there’s school, there’s business and there’s you.�

“…� I sat her down on the steps of the footbridge not really knowing what to say. I suck at giving advice that’s for sure.

Women are weird creatures.