Dinner joint player

I'm restless. I dunno if it's the humidity, pressure at the office, hunger, poverty, or the fact that we're all out of coffee. In any case, it sucks. I've tried bouncing my little red ball off the wall for about 5 minutes but it keeps bouncing off my hands and I have to bend over and pick it up off the floor or under the couch. So I stop, it's just not working out.

Ok fine, I thought, I should just try to sit still, stare at a wall and do nothing. Sounds simple enough, maybe even watch moss grow on my discarded coffee grounds collection. But then my mind screams at me to do something, anything at all to break the monotony. It doesn't appreciate that the rest of my body is motionless while it continues to be tortured with boredom. I think of porn, but I wasn't in the mood. (Yes, I never imagined porn could be boring in a million years! I must be sick...) So I play with my lighter, click-clack-click-clack, but that gets old real soon as well. WHAT THE HECK DO I WANT TO DO, ANYWAY?!!

*****

There's this particular area in Surigao City, a street by the docks that are lined with canteens. Every evening, just as dusk settles on this strip, the charcoals are lit, and the city's biggest barbeque-fest ensues. Yes, every evening.

I like going there, everybody in the city seems to go there as well. People walking, riding in on big ass SUV's, alighting trikes and scooters. Maybe it's the cheap food, one could buy half a chicken and a cup of rice there for the price of a McDonald's happy meal. And it doesn't taste bad at all. I frequent one of the larger ones right in the middle of the block, they have airconditioning which not only keeps you from sweating all that chicken oil while you eat it, but also insulates you from the smog that 50 or so charcoal-fired grills make.

One night, while walking to the strip from my hotel, (well, it's actually just a cheap pension house, but I find that calling it a 'hotel' kinda bumps up my stature) I decide that I'm not eating at the same place I usually do, just because I was feeling a bit adventurous.

So I settle into a quaint joint not too far from the usual, they had set tables on the sidewalk and I thought I'd try eating dinner al fresco, and order the usual chicken meal. I must admit, their chicken is tastier that what I'm used to, but in slightly smaller portions. I dig in with gusto, and even order some of their pork barbeque, just to try it out. Just as I was about to let out an after dinner burp of satisfaction, the waitress from the other joint walks up to me from the street and says hi. I stifle my burp, and say hi back. Then she walks to my current waitress and they talk. Apparently, they don't appreciate it when the other establishments 'steal' their regulars.

I try to listen in, straining to understand the dialect with my limited vocabulary. I could only make out that the next time they see me eat there again, they were going to 'steal' their regulars as well.

Now this strikes me as strange. I don't consider myself a regular at the other joint because I'm not from anywhere near this city and only spend 3 or 4 days at a time there in a span of 4 months or so. But apparently, eating dinner 2 nights in a row qualifies me as a regular, and was seduced by this particular whore of a diner. Was I guilty of canteen-adultery?

So my 'ex'-waitress walks back to me and tells me that I should eat back at their place the next time and they'd give me a discount. I just smile and nod my head, because if there's one thing I've learned in dealing with girls (probably the only thing I've ever figured out about them, actually) is that you never ever get in the middle of a catfight. It just gets messier when you do.

A good 5 minutes or so after my 'ex'-waitress had left, I ask for the bill. My current waitress hands it to me, and tells me that I shouldn't be intimidated by my 'ex'-waitress and feel free to come back whenever I liked. Thanks, I say, and settle the matter of the bill, leaving a nice little tip.

I took a trike to Jollibee for dinner the next night.

Oh, and I explicitly told the girl behind the counter this time that I'm just trying things out for myself, I don't think I'm ready to be 'mutually exclusive' with their joint just yet but we should enjoy our time together when we could and see how it goes from there.