Netnet Camomot
THE true test of a foodie.
You’ve gone through a two-hour land trip, sleepy, but still managed to finish a column in an hour. An hour late for the deadline, but with the editor in chief already warned beforehand, that went well despite...
You text a friend, who had her kidney stone blasted to smithereens a few hours ago, to tell her sorry, you didn't make it to that blasting on time. You were supposed to hold her hand while that blasting was ongoing but you were then on your way from Iligan and by the time you arrived in Cagayan de Oro, you had to write that column.
She replies that the blasting went well, and her legs are wobbly. Eventually, your text exchanges morph to queries on where she'll have lunch. She replies, Shakey's. You think, Oh, how appropriate: Shakey's for the wobbly legs. Operative word: shake.
You rush to Shakey's and sit there for a while, wondering where she is. So you text her. She replies, Gateway. Oh. You're waiting at the Limketkai Mall branch. Haha!
You're all feasting on pizza, fried chicken, mojos, spaghetti, iced tea. And once sated, the blasted stone, er, your friend now has to go home and rest.
You go back home, too, right after Shakey's to also sleep the whole afternoon away. Sigh. Bliss.
And that's the true test of a foodie. To go downtown, travel for, what, 20 minutes to have lunch, and return home right after. No dropping by the malls, bookstores, wherever. Simply rush from uptown to downtown, and vice versa.
This must be comparable to that joke about having breakfast in Paris, lunch in New York, dinner in Japan?
But it depends on the friend you're with. That is, if the friend is willing to travel that far, too, for a meal with you. After all, it's the friend, and not the food, that inspires one to rush to a meal.
Of course you notice the food on the table--the menu could be ginamos, puso, and ice-cold water. Or ginamos and puso. Or puso and nothing else. But it's the friends you're with that can make that meal yummy and memorable.
That's how families survive with rice and water, despite the lack of a roof over their heads. They have each other, that's what matters most. And the political candidate who can make a campaign slogan out of that is the wisest of 'em all? Hmmm.
You meet a lot of people as life happens. Some of them become your friends, some of them become your friends who turn out to be fake, some of them don't become your friends. It's a rollercoaster ride of hits and misses, with life not giving you the chance to mourn the loss of a friend, for that friend would not have been considered lost if you were indeed friends with each other. Confusing? Not exactly.
The political candidate goes through this rollercoaster ride, too, as he hops from one barangay to another during his campaign season, with his so-called friends hopping to the other camp once they feel disgruntled with his political machinery.
The thing is, you can't please everyone, and that's true for the political candidate, too. For ordinary mortals like us, not being able to please everyone is a given. But it can be disastrous to the candidate who needs votes to win. Thus, he has to consider kissing many a**es if he wants to win.
Look at the list of presidentiables--wait, there are five, right? O my gas. I've lost count. Say, if there are indeed five, each has to convince at least a little over 1/5 of Pinoy voters to win in this fun run he chose to join this year.
But since I'm no expert in statistics and percentages and ratios, it can be 1/15, 1/25, 1/35, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. The important thing is, the candidate's fraction should be higher than that of his opponents.
Surveys are still ongoing--there was one released a few days ago--and there could be at least one voter having this thought bubble hovering above his minute brain: Oh, better vote for the one leading in this latest survey, so, my vote won't go to waste.
Yay. How minute naman that brain.
That's like forgiving a so-called friend because he finally replied to your text after months of deadma. Hey, there could be a reason behind the silence: his phone went pfft and he forgot to give you his new number.
Besides, there are true friends you don't see for many many decades, and when you do meet again, it's like simply continuing the conversation you had the last time you met.
There are friendships that have been affected by political differences. No, they're not in this fun run to Malacanang or to city hall. They're merely voting for those who have joined the fun run, and political differences for them mean campaigning for different candidates. They're no longer Facebook friends, no longer friends outside of FB--blocked, unfriended, with one going for the iron fist, and the other with the candidate whose wife gives tsinelas to kids. And please don't confuse that last one with the vice presidentiable whose late husband wore tsinelas.
It must be the weather, eh? The unbearable heat making the Pinoy so fired up in his political choices now. Which is a good sign--he's finally a concerned citizen who's thinking of the future by voting for the best candidate who can elevate the country's present status to greater heights.
But the true test of a political candidate doesn't happen while he's campaigning. The true test happens once he's finally in office. For now, all we can do is base our decision on the candidate's political history--that is, if he has one. If he has no political history yet, well, good luck na lang.
Meanwhile, the foodie is back to her fish and protein shake diet. Hmmm. Yup, good luck na lang.
