Happy VD!

To celebrate this year of change's Valentine's Day, I decided to get off my ass and post an entry. I know. I know. It's been awhile. A long while. Apologies all around for that. And this being so, the first order of business is to give updates on this train wreck I quaintly call my life. I'm back home here at home in the Philippines. I've been here for almost a month now. The course in Salamanca ended last December and then I spent the holidays in Barcelona. I also did some traveling for the month and a half I still had after Salamanca. I am a lucky bastard, I know. I went to Paris and Amsterdam and then to Rome, Florence, and Venice in Italy. A lot of things happened of course which will provide me with enough material for future entries but I'm going to keep this entry brief though. I have to buy lubricants for tonight's Valentine's Day's festivities. I mean, for the car.

Let me tell you about this pithy exchange I had with the girl behind the counter at the KFC in Amsterdam. I know what's on your mind. What am I doing eating at a KFC and not chalking up new gastronomic experiences in the local restaurants? Well, for one thing fast food is cheap and another, the Netherlands isn't exactly renowned for its cuisine, right? I also have a thing about eating at the KFCs in the countries I travel to. I honestly believe that the KFCs here in the Philippines have the best menu. Well, the KFC chicken is the same all over but the basis for our country's superiority is that there's white rice and gravy with free refills to boot. In Amsterdam, as in Paris, the chicken is served with fries but they hand out wet naps in the Netherlands though. The KFCs in Spain actually charge you for your catsup and mayonaise packets -- of all the fucking nerve.

And so the Dutch girl behind the counter taking my order (shit, the name on her tag pinned to her uniform has escaped me) was very young and pretty precisely because she's young. Give her a couple of years and she'd be described as a handsome woman and not a beautiful one. I tell her that I'm getting the two-piece chicken set.

"Would you like a Coke?" she asked me.

I was taken aback because I knew that KFC was owned by Pepsi and therefore Coke was as welcome at KFC as PETA was. You know how the people behind the counters at KFC always give you that apologetic look when they say, "Pepsi lang po kami rito, eh."

"Yes," I said, "I'd like a Pepsi please."

"Okay, one Coke."

"Wait a minute," I then added, "make that a Pepsi Light please."

"Okay, a Coke Light."

I look at her and my insistence on Pepsi completely goes over her head. Right then and there, I desperately wished that I could speak Dutch so I could tell her that I'm trying to save her ass at work.

I give her one more shot when she hands me the Pepsi from the dispenser which has a big sign which says "Pepsi."

"This is Pepsi Light, right?"

"Yes," she said as I waited with anticipation and thought that she couldn't have missed the name of the softdrink company which pays her salary from the dispenser, "Coke Light."

I mumbled a thank you as I took the tray with my two-piece chicken, fries, complimentary wet nap, and a motherfucking Pepsi Light.