I decided to do a major overhauling in the house last weekend–driving everyone crazy, of course. My weekend hero was Fantastic Ning who was brave enough to utter only two words whenever I was around. “Op” which I finally discerned was a shortcut for “opo” (the polite way of saying ‘yes’ in the Filipino language), and “Op” which again, I decoded, was an expression of surprise. So the reply to all my requests and what I would hear when a stack of plates would crash on the floor sounded exactly the same. Fantastic Ning was a woman of homophones.
Artwork by then seven-year old Niccolo Sebastian Beldia |
“Room for Rent” was published in The News Today on August 2, 2005.
The new urbanites make up almost half of the population in this city (I picked up the stats at an abandoned coffee table so you don’t have to believe this). However, that little piece of information suggests that people have been spending a lot of time looking for comfortable temporary homes, from the nearest to ones sitting on the dusty outskirts of the city. The farther it is from schools and the popular malls, the cheaper a room will cost. That’s one must-know for anybody who is still homeless at this point.
VIA Ready Brew by Starbucks Company |
Manufacturers often make sure their packaging says it’s “instant coffee that tastes like brewed coffee”, but then you end up getting the same odd coffee flavor. The words ‘aroma’ and ‘flavorful’ painfully shy away from flimflam coffee, and I have experienced this over and over again for years. Everytime a new brand of instant coffee comes out in the market, I’m the gullible buyer who brings every hope with me to the cavalcade of consumers, thinking “Maybe…just maybe I’ll finally have my ‘this is it’ moment”. The wait was quite long; not damaging, however frustrating.