Youngblood
Fast-food escape
By Nina R.T. Landicho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:03:00 08/23/2008
Exhausted after spending several hours looking for a part-time job, walking some distance to have some readings photocopied and talking with some old friends, I was more than glad to realize that I was inside a fast-food store already. I got there by dragging my body and urging myself to keep going. My feet were mashed potatoes inside my shoes, which now looked brown, changing from its original blue due to hours of cost-cutting, but energy-depleting walking around the university campus.
But even inside the store, I had to suffer the bureaucratic routine of telling a nosy attendant what I was ordering and then listening to him babble about add-ons and stuff. Then, I had to tell the cashier with her plastered smile the same thing. And to prolong the agony of my grumbling stomach, the cashier prodded me to try the add-ons I had previously been invited to order by the nosy attendant.
After around 15 minutes of extended torture, my order finally came. It consisted of a plateful of harassed “lumpia” roll, a sick steak teeming with anemic gravy, and some porridge-looking rice—all of which I had to carry to an empty table which I had some difficulty finding.
Finally seated, I inhaled the non-organic smell of the fast-food restaurant. I could not help but notice the sea of people around me. They were all going about their business with deep concentration. Some women were racing with construction workers to finish their meals. Others were pretending to be on a diet as they timidly chewed their food as they sat across their boyfriends. Some looked as if all that mattered was the food they were eating. Others were trying to chat their worries away as if their problems were public property, with some of them baring clenched teeth and glaring angrily at people who looked their way. Still others laughed to show their deep appreciation for everything.
On the other hand, most of the men sat quietly eating their food while doing some babe-watching. Some tinkered with their phones or tapped on the table while discreetly staring at a woman wearing a flimsy orange spaghetti top and a pair of shorts just slightly longer than panties.
With so many people inside the store, I felt as if some eyes were always on me every time I put food in my mouth.
I was half-way through my meal when a boy wearing a clean shirt and freshly ironed shorts approached and asked for some food. I was taken aback that somebody who was looking spic-and-span would be going around begging for some food. Amazement followed as I took note of his shaven eyebrows and squeaky clean face. I told him reproachfully, “Excuse me, no.”
Perhaps knowing that his tricks would not work on me, he immediately moved to another table, and did his spiel. Luckily for him, the mother took pity on him and gave her pie away.
The boy finished it in several nanoseconds and left without saying a word. I marveled at how he could stomach the rough treatment he normally got. I was challenged to think about it some more.
The fast-food outlet is almost every Filipino’s sweet escape from the poverty around him. Looking out from the cozy confines of the store, I observed children barely 5 years old walking around without panties and begging passersby for coins or food. Several children, probably having given up on ever receiving money, just peered through the glass walls, watching the customers eat, their eyes showing their strong craving.
As people left the store, they hurried past the children, consciously avoiding eye contact with them as if to shut out from view these living images of poverty. Maybe, they were telling themselves they were poor, too. What was going on inside their head, I did not know. But I could sense a look of weariness from working but not earning enough in most of them.
Looking further to the street corner, I could see lonely sidewalk vendors with their baskets still full of goods. Occasionally, drivers waiting in a long line of jeepneys would buy candies or cigarettes to pass the time away. From time to time, dispatchers angrily shooed away jeepney drivers who were loading passengers without waiting in line. And the blazing sun only added to an already heated atmosphere.
From the crew inside the store and the people savoring the quick pleasure and distraction from their normal routines to the people outside, everyone was trying to say something. Each wanted to be heard or wanted people to take notice of them. Fast-food stores have always been noisy. Perhaps, they are the only places where people can express their pent-up rage and complaints about soaring prices, problems at home and troubles in the workplace (if they have jobs in the first place). The ones outside clearly wished they were inside the fast-food store to share their burdens with anyone who might care to listen or take notice of their own sorrows. Their clothes, their behavior and how they looked spoke eloquently of their desperate situation.
Has everyone forgotten their manners, like the clean-looking boy? Has the battle for survival, made worse by the raging inflation, made Filipinos numb to others’ needs as well? Or are we being forced to turn a blind eye to the misery of others because we ourselves are miserable?
Nina R.T. Landicho, 17, is a second year Bachelor of Arts in Communication Research student at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
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