Young Underpaid Professionals

My dad is an amazing fount of interesting stories. Honestly, I’d hear much more if I had more patience to just sit and listen. The extra helping of patience is needed to hear some stories told over and over. Plus, dad is in the habit of bringing me coffee, sitting down, and start telling stories – regardless if I’m writing, playing games, talking to five people at once over chat or just lounging about. I’m sure I do and will do that too – tell stories over and over – so I don’t have the right to be annoyed or anything. Also, my tatay’s stories tend to meld into one another, and sometimes, there isn’t so much as a “It was a dark and stormy night” intro.

The stories jump to my father’s childhood in Malabon, his bachelor days in Panghulo, his adventures in the Bureau of Fisheries, the funny stories of how Lolo Canor came to be called “Kamote,” and other stories. Some stories are nostalgic, some funny, some scary (some supernatural, some not), while a few are sad (like the stories about the prices of gas “back in the day”).

So anyway, today, I had the requisite amount of patience, and the requisite amount of time. Here are a couple of stories I heard over the years that I only thought to chronicle now.

The Lola Entang Palengke Story

I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but for the life of me, I can’t find where I wrote it.

Lola Entang is somewhat made of a different kind of awesome. As my tatay recounts, an innocent trip to the wet market can lead to epic displays of hubris. As the story goes, Lola Entang was out shopping and came upon the fish stand. As all discerning palengke-going moms know, you need to pinch the fish’ belly (the milkfish/bangus) to know if it’s good and fat.

The fish stand owner didn’t seem to have much patience that day and blurted out, “Wag nyo namang lamasin ang isda, baka dutdot kayo ng dutdot, di naman kayo bibili.” (Don’t pinch the fish. You shouldn’t keep poking them if you aren’t going to buy any.)

The poor fish stand woman couldn’t have seen what was coming. Lola Entang had grabbed an arm-length fish by the tail and slapped the woman’s face, twice. Did your lolas ever slap anybody with a giant trout? Huh? Huh?

Fish Horror Stories

Next story isn’t about bucketfulls of chutzpah, it’s about the hazards of provincial life. Tatay was telling me a story about how to catch bulig (or dalag, a very slippery freshwater fish); “You have to be fast with a salakab (a tube made of bamboo and yantoc)”, he says. After catching it with the contraption, you have to then use your hands to grab the fish from the tube. My father suddenly remembered a story, “Minsan nga may namatay dun eh. Kagat-kagat nya yung ulo nung martiniko (a fish), tapos nagkamali sya. Di na sya nakahinga.” (Somebody died [while catching dalag]. He was biting down on the head of a martiniko and made a mistake. He choked.)

My urbanized self could not fathom how one chokes on a fish. “Bakit naman nya kinagat ulo nung isda?” (Why was he biting on the fish’ head in the first place?) My father replies, “Ah, ginagawa talaga yun. Baka malayo yung plastic o lalagyan nya. Baka nagkamali sya ng kagat, nakapuslit yung isda pababa ng lalamunan nya. Yung isda kasi na yun, bumubuka palikpik tapos malikot.” (That’s usually done. They do that if their plastic bags or containers are on the shore. He must have made a mistake, loosened his bite on the fish, and the fish slid down his throat. That fish opens up its fins and moves a lot.)

In another fish horror story, Father’s acquaintance saw a huge dalag in the pond. He hurries home to get his salakot to try and get some tasty dinner for himself. The guy tried until he was drenched in sweat and tired. The sun was high up in the sky and it was hot. Then he realizes, dalags usually come out when the rains come. It had rained only a few days back, and it couldn’t have been enough for the dalags to come out of their hibernation. Father recounts, chuckling, “Kumaripas sya ng takbo pauwi. Nagkandadapa-dapa pa yun. Napagtanto nya kasi na tiyanak yung sinasalakot nya.” (He ran as fast as his feet could take him. He stumbled in his haste. He realized he had been trying to catch a tiyanak.)

Maybe I should compile the scary stories for Halloween.

That said, I’ll save a couple (dozen) more stories – more for my sake than yours, actually – for later.

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