Englishero/a

ENGLISHERO/A

I don’t know why but everytime I hear someone speak in English in the most unlikely places, and in the most unexpected times, I cringe. And I cringe and twitch when I get an affirmation that THAT someone works for a call center. I mean, I have nothing against call center people. God, I got lots of friends who work for call centers. The only difference, maybe, is that my friends, who work for call centers, know when and when not to speak in English. At least most of them do.
I was in ayala and I saw this dude with an ID tag of one call center. From his conversation with a Metro Ayala guard, I found out that he wanted to leave his bag so he could pee. The guard suggested that there was a package counter on the ground floor. The guy erupted into an all-english world-lashing. The poor guard just blinked a couple of times.

Un-cool guy: “The customer is always right. How dare you say no to the very person who pays for the clothes that you are wearing now? You might as well know right now that we, as customers, have unwritten privileges. Think about that. ” Then he walked away.

I knew what he wanted the guard to remember – Never mess with a good English speaker!

Duh! He was trying too hard to appear as a ‘deep’ and intellectually capable individual. He wasn’t. And I wager that he isn’t.

The fucker! Not only was he an a-hole, he was also an impolite and proud slimy bastard! Like the guard understood what he just said! Hilas tong animal ay! Mura rabag gwapo! Pirti bayang bati-ag nawng’s giatay!

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I was ‘trapped’ one fateful day when I had to spend four hours on that van with a bunch of noisy and rowdy call-center people. The group was so noisy that, I swear, I rolled my eyes, for like a million times. It seemed to me that that group was celebrating the fact that one of them lived in Colorado for like thirteen years. Yehey! Like I care!
They should have rented out a van or something for themselves and speak all the English they want!
Everytime the dude on my right delivered his punchlines, I would turn to my right just in time to see the old lady sitting beside me, roll her eyes. Ahak!

Honestly, I don’t know if they do this to ‘practice’ or just because they use English at home or at any social intercourse. Or maybe to show off!

Yeah, yeah, I don’t speak and write good English. That’s fine. You can probably find hundreds of grammatical errors in this post. But to tell you, speaking in English even if it’s uncalled for DOESN”T MAKE YOU WAY COOLER!!!! I’m not saying DONT DO IT. Just wanted to say na kapag hindi kailangan, magtagalog or magbisaya na lang sana!

Girl one: Are we there yet?
Me: (The van’s still moving! Duh!)
Guy one: No. But we’re still in Alcantara. Dudes, look here. Count the lamp posts on the road side. That should be 137 or 152 by the time we reach another municipality. That’s how small this place is.
Me: (Duh! Like we don’t already know!)

And besides, there were only 105 lamp posts! I was counting. What a jerk!