a story from Sonny Espejo

a Friday in Dubai

 

Sunday in Dubai is the start of the work week. Fridays and Saturdays are the weekend days, Friday being the holiest day in the Muslim faith. In lieu of a Sunday service, Christians attend Friday masses, which to me is just alright since I find the Sunday evening mass too much of a hassle. And so, one lazy Friday morning after the mass in Saint Mary's Church, we drove to a chic and newly opened mall in the beach district of Jumeira, all three of us Flips, to just walk around and have a good laidback lunch. Such thing is a luxury in our working environs. We chose a restaurant called Chilis, not so much for the Mexican style food but for the good view that its wide glass walls offer of the front walk and the taxi stand and the fountains set on a garden further down.

 

Dubai has become a cosmopolitan city, and on any given day, you would encounter people of different nationalities and ethnicities mingling and interacting just like they were from the same small village called the world. They said boys will be boys and over dessert and coffee Raul, Ed and myself enjoyed taking in the sight of lovely girls that seem to just walk around for our ogling.  Blonds, brunettes, blacks, Orientals, middle eastern, Latinas, Americans, Aryans, Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Filipinas, Vietnamese, Australians, British – they're all here. And we were pimply college kids all over again. One banter leads to another until Ed and Raul came to a head – they could not agree on who is prettiest, Brazilians or Swedes. I am not of much help either. I admire most the virgin-like faces of Lebanese ladies but I keep that to myself.

 

But just to break the deadlock, I asked them for a change who they consider are the most unattractive. Almost unhesitantly, "Indonesians!", they declared in unison and I laughed with them in total agreement. Of course, we were thinking in sync of that fat, loud, snooty, unsightly, scowling Indonesian wife of our landlord who just that morning reproached us on the use of the garage. Yup, we unanimously agree, Indonesians are officially the ugliest and we moved on chatting about other care free topics, dropping that mean joke altogether.

 

After a while, a Filipino guy, apparently homesick and new in Dubai approached our table. " Kabayans!", he greeted.   "I overheard you speaking in Tagalog.  Kanina ko pa kayo gustong lapitan. Kaya lang naga-alangan ako. Akala ko kasi kanina…

 

… mga Indonesians kayo."

 

We almost died laughing and we were never more red in the face. Poetic Justice, it was and it came way sooner than we expected.

 

Moral of the story: Always choose a landlord with a gorgeous wife.

 

--Sonny Espejo