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Showing posts from December, 2009

Commuter Chronicles: Taxi driver on love

Just some updates: I only teach one hour a day now, and I've moved to Libis. I'm looking for my own place, but for now, I stay with my cousin and get reacquainted with the city and its long commutes and its strange, and sometimes chatty, people.

Love, to one taxi driver

I could see his dimple from where I sat. He was tall, chinky-eyed, and chatty. He told me about how he had had a relationship with a former boss, which ended five years later, because her teenage son found out and threw a fit.

He confessed he had intended not to take the relationship seriously--as she was separated with kids, four years older, and not exactly a looker--but ended up making her his whole world.

In CaviteƱo Tagalog, he told me about how he would just stay in his dorm when she was away, because if he would go out, she would accuse him of having somebody else.

He told me about the time he asked her why she had gone for him, despite his being a driver, and she replied, "Well, you don't look like a driver anyway."

She had two children, a girl and a boy. Her husband had left her. She called him, "My driver, my lover, my bodyguard."

He told me how he had decided to stay away and quit his job when they broke up. "That's the problem with having a relationship with your boss," he said, "when it's over, you end up with nothing."

He told me, "When you fall in love, don't make it your everything or else you'll end up empty-handed when it ends."

Before I got off, he said, "Next time, I'll just fall in love with a maid."

"Why?" I asked, as I handed him my fare, hoping for more of his wisdom, a sign, something--

"Well, to begin with, at least I'm sure she takes a bath three times a day."

Um, okay.