NOTHING is more discouraging to a fully-grown, mature, healthy Filipino male than to discover that he has run out of beer buddies on a Saturday night. Always unexpected but very difficult to accept—like athlete’s foot, corny jokes, and middle-age—the sheer absence of friends to share a drink (or two) with especially during weekends is a form of torture tantamount to the election liquor ban.
Unfortunately, this was exactly the kind of suffering I almost had to endure a few weeks ago, when the specter of a sober Saturday loomed large on the horizon.
The day began innocuously enough, never giving any indication that I would run dry of beer buddies later in the evening.
Before I got out of bed, my wife left for Metro Manila’s deep south—Alabang—to attend an extended lunch party. Upon kissing me goodbye, she told me that she wouldn’t be back until midnight, leaving our fat feline companion and myself to our own devices for one whole day.
Intending to take full advantage of my solitude, I stayed in front of the computer and typed until I developed carpal tunnel syndrome and conjunctivitis. Meanwhile, our indifferent overweight cat proceeded to ignore me just like he did during the other days of the week.
But as soon as the sun set, I whipped out my phone and sent text invitations to the two of three permanent members of the Thursday Institute for Transformative Ideas, an exclusive group which undertakes informal discussions regarding public transportation, traffic enforcement, and Katrina Halili.
Unfortunately, not a single one responded in the affirmative.
While B., a lawyer, was at home, he was nonetheless occupied with a role-playing game with his other friends, all geeks. For his part, A., a television producer, escaped the pressures of his job by spending the weekend in Cebu with his girlfriend—a rare privilege anyway you look at it. After all, whenever assaulted from all sides by various forms of pressure, regular people such as myself merely scamper off to the nearest cubicle and cry in the toilet, an option I was about exercise since no one among my closest friends gave in to my form of beer pressure.
However, since thirst got the better of my self-pity, I decided to grab a few cold ones—all by myself—at our regular watering hole in Quezon City. No amount of pride, prudence, and fortitude was about to prevent me from nursing an alcoholic beverage, best consumed cold.
Fortunately, even before I finished my second bottle, I was joined by E., the bar’s lovely proprietor, who agreed to sit with me and listen to my tales of woe. And by the time I left at midnight, I was already sufficiently loaded, satisfied that another Saturday didn’t go by uneventfully.
