NOT ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD

[Tinkered memories on November 8, 2011 at 2:04pm]

It was a very tight gridlock last Friday night, I was so lonely but never alone.  How could I be?  I was sitting uncomfortably in the bus on my way home.  I saw vehicles of all forms and sizes from both directions pushing and shoving each other.  Each one raring to gain an inch, forcibly creating every opportunity at the expense of another.

The heat was inexcusable, I guessed the aircon was at full blast yet the coldness blown and expected from that machine was simply no match, to be exact, against the collective warm bodies of the restless earthlings all eager to reach home early thus unmindful if the bus was standing-room-only and jam-packed.

I was profusely perspiring at the time, hoping against hope I would catch in time, and in style, my uncle’s dinner treat at the seafoods resto three hundred meters away from my domicile.

I was fuming mad inside, okay, just simply irritated.  Say, a little impatient about the bus’ minimal speed.  I refrained myself from urging my knuckles to pull out the driver from his seat and drive the shuttle myself.  But, as if on cue, he suddenly floored the gas, but since my anger already accelerated, it still did no help.

Then I saw someone, through a rear-view mirror, sitting at the right side of the driver, an extremely privileged and well-endowed individual.  If you could imagine anyone who is a cross between Catherine Zeta-Jones and Megan Fox then you know what I mean with that gal.  I would have mistaken her totally for a Caucasian, had it not for her St. Paul uniform and natural tan.

And I suddenly recalled my previous experience with the same uniform but a different lady.  Yeah, once in my life, I was shocked and awed but extremely amused by a Paulinian beauty. 

The kind of beauty that taught me a lesson I will always remember. A lesson learned thru experience never to judge a book by its cover.

I could still vividly refresh in mind that one morning when I rode a PUJ and sat right behind the driver many years ago.  At the time, I was so angry at something also, praying I would beat eight o’clock when I was in my job’s freshman year or so.   Thus, each time the driver stopped to pick up every living thing along the street, I was tempted to slap the back of his head if not to grab his neck for a minute. 

Then, all of a sudden, a corn-haired St. Paulinian coed with a wondrously stunning angelic face embarked in Molo plaza.  Right at first glance, I could sense in her the true sense of a rare femininity of a well-bred, traditional Filipina.  Anywhere I looked at her, the way she moved and gave a Monalisa smile, she was prim and proper.  Ah, the one thing of which a true Filipina of old was known for all over the world: “Mahinhin, super!

I was compelled to face her as she was directly sitting right in front of me.  I was reluctant not to take my eyes off her and such captivating beauty.  She was gracefully holding her big nursing book very close to her chest.  The hem of her fine checkered skirt was securely wrapped around her knees.  She also held firmly her straight shiny long black hair to her right as if denying any gent, or any adoring co-commuter/seatmate to have a smell of that terrific, heavenly scent. 

As I tendered to the driver my ten-peso bill, I was tempted to pay for her fare but it might cause her annoyance or rage.  This, even if I’d say regular fare at the time was only one peso per head while seventy-five cents was a student privilege.  And I reluctantly decided to stop the urge.  Chivalry would wait later for its right surge.

I was still in the middle of my unrestrained adoration when she tendered her one-peso coin to the driver.  Quick on the draw, I picked the coin from between her fine-chiseled fingers that I myself would give it him for her. 

When she smiled as she said “thank you” I wanted to think she was not a St. Paulinian but an Ivy Leaguer:  as she was like someone who was bred in the 1950’s and thus apt to be called with the “Golden Girl” moniker.

My heart was full of excitement when the driver handed back to me a twenty-five centavo coin change for the Golden Girl.  And of course, I swiftly received it and tenderly tendered it back to her, with my neck and stare slowly doing a swirl. 

After she took it from my hand with her right thumb and forefinger while the other three were stretched out like a peacock’s feather, as if doing a shampoo advertisement she gracefully swayed back her hair, tilted her head leftward, and put the coin in her right ear.

In that instant, another cliche was recalled: “Not all that glitters is gold.”