Finding Nemo

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Philippine Short Stories

==== Prison Party ====

I met a bloke named Andy at the rooftop hangout at Friendly's dumpy hostel in Malate, Manila.  We were supposed to meet up last night, but he and his friend Tom had vanished.  We watched a bit of the Arsenal v Man United match, Arsenal won 1-0.  People do love rooting against Man U. everywhere in the world.  We got to talking and he said he was a bit tired, it had been a rough night last night.

"Yeah where did you go?  I thought you were just going to get some money."

"Mate it was nuts.  We went to the 7-11 to just get a few beers.  We were walking back to meet you, and then suddenly I was grabbed from behind and pushed to the ground!  I looked over my shoulder and there were some cops.  Tom freaked out the crazy bastard.  He started to run!  Haha.  They chased him down straight away.

Next thing you know, we are in the back of the car headed to the dock.  I couldn't believe it.  We got there, and they made us fill out all these forms and told us we couldn't drink on the street.  Here we were at the police station just because we had a beer from the 7-11.  Then they said we had to pay a fine or go to prison.  They claimed the prison term was 1 month for me and 6 months for Tom, because he had "embarrassed the police" by running.  6 months!!  Outrageous.  They were so serious, and they had automatic weapons.

What could we do??!  I had to pay 10,000 pesos (US$230) and poor Tom had to pay 30,000!!!  (US$690).   It was a total fucking bribe of course.  What a scam, they take any poor tourist who cracks a can on the street and get rich."

He leaned over.  "And get this.  As soon as we handed over the money, they started smiling and laughing.  They had just pulled 600 quid off us, why not?  Then they put on some music and cracked some cans themselves.  They handed beers to us too, so we drank them.  It was mental.  Here we had just been thrown to the ground for drinking and now they were handing us more!  Then, one said I looked like that Chris Martin guy from Coldplay.  'Martin!'  'Martin!'  they kept laughing.  One of the cops put on a Coldplay song, and asked me to sing.  So I sang!"

"Hahaha!!!!  That's so messed up.  Why the hell did you sing dude?  Weren't you pissed?"

"What could I do?!  They had bloody machine guns.  Then, they fired up a full-on BBQ, brought us food and tequila and we partied for a couple hours.  Finally, drunk off their asses, they dropped us back off in Malate, smiling and patting us on the back like old friends."

==== I'm a Nurse ====

The night before the prison party incident, Andy met a girl at a bar.  She seemed nice, and the conversation was going fantastic.  He couldn't believe how well it was going actually.  So he asked.

"So what do you do for work?"

"I'm a nurse."

Perfect.  She was legit.  He bought one of those cheap rooms that you can rent by the hour.  After a bit of fooling around, she stopped and announced she was a "working girl" and that it would cost 1000 pesos for an hour.

"What?!  You just said you were a nurse?!"  He stopped a beat, then said, "You know, it turns out I'm a working guy.  I have a lot of clients in Makati actually, and I charge 2000 pesos an hour.  It turns out you owe me a 1000."

2 comments:

  1. I wonder if the guys could have negotiated a bit with the police. Often if you have a lot of patience along with much politeness it is possible to negotiate.

    ReplyDelete