Holy
cow!
by Fe Egay
IBA talaga ang Pinay: Tet Emperado, you�re the one. You�re the Pinay phlebotomist at the North Shore Hospital who magically found my vein! You see, someone else poked a needle in my arm three times for a blood test without success. Now when you have an IV injection on the left arm and feeling quite sick like me you would be frustrated. So, I just told her to go and get some help.
Enter a nice looking, smiling Filipina. Two taps and in less than 10 seconds she located my vein! Holy cow! T et reflects how the world perceives our workers and professionals. Our nurses, such as Yen Yen Silay of the Ascot Hospital who was off to London last November 20 for an OE exemplify the best in the profession. They are highly skilled, hard working and dedicated to their jobs, not to mention their pleasant manners and great attitudes at work.
Mutual Culture Shock: According to some Pinays married to Kiwis, the trouble with some Kiwi husbands is they want you to work and share 50% of all expenses even if your income is only half of what the men earn. In short, as you lose your half to the automatic contribution, the hubby saves his half. Then if you ask for money to assist your family back home, or for shopping, they get shocked and call you a hustler. I know a husband who, if you dip into his pockets would call it a �search and destroy operations�. Meaning, you destroy his budget by taking out some coins! Holy cow! Take out the calculators, girls. Ano sila, sinusuerte? Charge them a fee every time they call your name. Or, give them just half of whatever they want.
On the other hand, Kiwi husbands are shocked at the Pinay facility for expenditure. They are appalled by our collection of clothes, shoes and hand bags occupying all the wardrobes, including that in the hallway. Not to mention the jewelries, [genuine] and the bling blings for effect. One Kiwi commented that all our baubles and trinkets would put the Queen of Sheba to shame! It seems that Kiwi men can live on six shirts, six pants and six sets of undies plus two jumpers and two formal suits and bin these once these go tattered. Holy cow! Mga kuripsing! No wonder they can buy homes, holidays, cars and boats. Good on them. Not for some Pinays, this saving and frugality martyr- dom. They love to spend the weekly salary, go on laybys and drown the credit cards. You only live once, is that right?
Hot Emails, Txts and Pxts: You get angry with someone and you start com- posing a vile, vitriolic, acidic letter calling your subject names, exposing her faults and misdemeanors. Copy furnish ten people in your block listing. You tap the send box. Whew! You have done it and you gloat with glee. You have exacted your revenge and made your enemy pay her dues. Your friend is hurt but wants to keep your friendship, so she comes and explains and apologizes, and so after all these years you do forgive each other. What about the ten other readers? What to do with them? Excuse me, you mean the 50 other readers? Chances are a controversial email gets passed around, copied or forwarded at least five times. Right? Holy cow! These hi tech gadgets may save you time but, they can really put you and your victim in hot water. Ask these sporting stars: David Beckham, England football captain, Shane Warne, Australia�s ace bowler, and locally, Tall Blacks and Breakers basketball player, Dillon Boucher whose texts got them into management, marital and tabloid troubles. But all three were wise. They immediately went into damage control by facing, not ignoring the issue. They explained, apologized, and vowed nevah evah to do it again to their wives, team coaches and managements. Result? They continue to play and laugh their way to the bank! As for shooting emails when angry, my lola�s generation had more fun: they played the witchy bit by sticking pins and needles on witchy-looking dolls. Sweet as.
American Beauty: When George Bush declared on television that America will vote for him because they like to see four more years of his beauteous wife Laura, that echoed the Marcos campaigns of 1965 and 69. Young, stunning and outstandingly beautiful, Imelda was truly the magnet and biggest vote getter of Marcos. The masses looked at her as a movie star. Who wants to listen to economic reforms, tax cuts, constitutional laws, budgets and deficits? These issues go from one ear and out the other except for one per cent in the audience. But beauty is another matter. In the Philippine context, we don�t greet one another with �oy, you�re a real success now.� We often say,� oy, ang ganda mo ngayon,� or �mapayat ka yata,� placing a high premium on looks.
Which goes back to Laura Bush. Political analysts believe that Bush was voted for his solid leadership, his handling of the war in Iraq and terrorism issues. In short, he won by appealing to the deadly emotion of fear. Was Osama�s video for real? Why did it come perfectly in time for the crunch? Why did it tally with the Bush fear factor? Or was it a computer-generated propaganda? Ask the Americans who allegedly landed on the moon.
But Bush was actually boosted by his conservative moral values campaign, such as man-woman marriage [not Adam and Steve,], anti abortion issues espoused by Churches and Christians. PLUS, the clean, refreshing image of �a real cutie� Laura Bush. Who can question that? So, four more years of Bush as the slogan goes. Or, is it four more wars? The world hopes that this Texan cowboy will junk his �axis of evil� theme with the alleged nuke programmers, Iran and North Korea . But like the real cowboy that he is, he would rather shoot first before asking the hard questions. At the APEC meeting in Santiago, Chile this month, headlines screamed that he went outside of the economic and trade loop and �hijacked� the APEC with his pistols trained on the �axis of evil� countries to stop their nuclear programmes. W ill North Korea and Iran listen? If not, holy, holy cow!