Now, while I’m usually off of work on Mondays, Maffy gets off at around 4 in the afternoon. Realizing that I had three hours to kill after picking up the bouquet of flowers I was going to give her, I went ahead and decided to be a little productive by taking my car to the shop and have my tires replaced and a couple of other things repaired.

Big Fucking Mistake.

The tire shop closest to where I live is this abysmal, ramshackle structure that has a non-airconditioned waiting room.

If you know me well enough, you’d know that I know jack shit about cars save for driving them. However, I was all up in the mechanic’s business making sure that he is really replacing the shit I was paying him to replace and repairing the shit I was paying him to repair–especially since how my mom kept telling me ever since I was young never to trust poor people because, in her own word’s, they “stink”, “they can’t afford a television set”, and “Here’s 500 bucks. Go back to your room and don’t play with squatters”

So, the entire time, imagine me observing the mechanic working on my car while it’s hoisted up on a lifter, engine fluid, motor oil and other shit dripping on me and touching grimy parts of my car’s under chassis just to look a little like I know what the fuck’s going on.

Fast forward to 7pm: Maffy and I walk into this swanky restaurant. I was reeking of motor oil and was wearing a hoodie which had splotches of some kind of engine fluid.

Now, because I’m generally a very insecure person, a good amount of the time we spent in the restaurant was spent with me trying to decide if I was the suckiest person in the entire establishment. Of course, “suckiest” in this context meant either “has the worst, lowest-paying job”, “looks like it’s not his first time dining at a place where entrees costs at least three times his daily rate” or “hasn’t sustained an erection long enough to satisfy a woman–or himself– for the past couple of months because of a side effect of a drug he’s taking to treat his anxiety disorder.”

The conclusion? I was, without a doubt the suckiest person in that restaurant that night. Judging solely on appearance (clothes, hygiene, grooming, confidence level, and the likelihood of having had a threesome in the past), I was definitely languishing at the bottom of the rankings. (My score being: highly unstylish, sweaty and stinky, sad and dispirited, zero unless having been “inspired” by two magazines at a furious masturbation session counts)

Anyway, because I just spent half my paycheck on a dinner that didn’t even come close to satisfying my hunger and after, sadly, winning the distinction of being the suckiest person in the restaurant in my own mind, I decided to do the only thing I know to help make things better–to drink.

Maffy and I ended up in Mag:Net cafe over at Bonifacio High Street for some beers.

Okay, here’s the thing about this entire “Rising Internet Star” deal–I rarely get recognized. I’m not saying that random people don’t come up to me and say “Hey, are you that guy with a blog? You really are fat.” They DO but it’s so fucking rare that whenever it happens, I jizz in my pants (Figuratively and literally)

Anyway, shortly after paying the bill, a guy from the table next to ours came up to me and said “Hi, are you Mike Villar?” I, hesitantly (I mean, you never know if the guy works for a credit card company I owe money to right?), said yes.

He literally exploded and said “Oh my God! We’re big fans!” motioning to the other guy he was with. He followed up with “Please, can we buy you guys beers?” Oh yes my friend, you can. Very much so.

I was pretty buzzed prior to that point and only then did I realize that the guys were JC Medina and Gabe Mercado. Apparently, the guys owned Mag:Net.

Being a star and all, I know that I should be all chill about this and act like it’s not a big deal and all, but dude it was fucking awesome. The only times I’ve been recognized like that is through friends in the same circle or some shit like that. But never had other celebrities, not to mention real, and bigger celebrities recognized me.

(I know I’m starting to sound like a total Douchebag writing this but whatever. Fuck you.)

So JC and Gabe, thank you so much for the free beers (half of which I spilled on my shirt three seconds after you left to host Rockeoke) and for joking about how you heard about how I had an 18-inch penis! Infront of  my fiancee no less! That was very classy of you, sirs!

Oh, and I’m really sorry for sort of pushing it and asking if you guys could hook me up with some free food after you already gave me free booze AND for even thinking if I should ask money for parking from you guys as well as for leaving without saying goodbye. You guys were busy hosting Rockeoke and I really had to get back home to work on my medical transcriptions. Man’s got to earn his keep yo.

In the Philippines, the first week of July is when classes start for a lot of schools nationwide. And, for someone like me who drives a good 56 Kilometers a day to and from work, the transition from the summer break where traffic is pleasantly light to the start of the school year where traffic reaches “I am so frustrated right now, I wanna wrap my penis around the steering wheel and karate chop it until it gets numb” levels is traumatizing to say the least.

If you’re familiar with Quezon City, you’d know that this is especially bad in the Katipunan area where several universities and colleges are located.

Anyway, earlier I found myself in a monster traffic jam on a part of Katipunan avenue where major roadwork was underway.

Now, here’s something you probably don’t know about me: I pick my nose like a 200 year-old Chinese man would. This is something I do without much regard for anything–in a drinking party with friends? I’ll send Mr. Pinky right into the mines and won’t call him back until he has enough green gold to call a haul. Bored while watching a movie with the girlfriend? In goes Mr. Pinky again. I do this shit everywhere.

And I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I changed up the brand of cigarettes I smoke from Winston lights to Marlboro golds, the amount of “treasure” I could pick from inside my nose has effectively doubled.

Anyway, as I was sitting through the rush hour traffic earlier while listening to music from my iPod with my windows rolled down; I felt the urge to just dig right in. I must have had my entire right arm halfway up my nostril before I decided to reel it in. Treasure finally in hand, I wiped the index finger where the fresh booger was on my car’s steering wheel. There, it would naturally harden into a decorative stud like the thousand others before it. It was great.

It took a few attempts — the piece was stickier than usual and has about the same consistency as the adhesive people use to set vinyl tiles on floors– but I was eventually successful after I rolled the thing between my index finger and my thumb a couple of times to soften its hold a little. Again, it was great.

It was only then that I became fully cognizant of the situation–I was stuck in traffic. Katipunan’s westbound side, the side I was on, had two lanes. I had my windows rolled down. There is a car right beside mine. It has its windows rolled down too. And motherfucker, is that an attractive girl on the driver’s seat? Hello!

The girl had this look on her face that told me that she had witnessed everything. From me bobbing my head to music, the moment which will henceforth be known throughout the annals of history as “The great excavation” (Which, now that I think about it, is reminiscent of that scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger was having this really huge ball extracted from his brain through his nose in Total Recall) To the initial failed attempts to add the piece to my collection and my eventual triumph.

If I read her muted expression correctly, it said “After seeing all of that, I do not know whether I should feel disgusted or pity him”

Unsure of what to do, I tinkered with my iPod a bit before finally rolling up my car’s window, and, as soon as I got the chance, pulling my car in front of her’s.

It’s been a few hours since that happened but I find myself laughing hard at the entire thing when I remember it. Somebody, a chick no less, witnessed me pick my nose with the tenacity previously only observed in mentally deranged people.

What’s worse is that I’m laughing by myself while writing about it at work. Can somebody please promote me already?

I would also like to impart some things I learned through the whole engagement ordeal particularly the process of getting an engagement ring which, I’m pretty sure everyone who has proposed before could attest to, is the hardest, most frustrating part of the process.

First of all, although my Ilocano roots make me generally predisposed to hating everything that involves spending superfluous amounts of money in the traditional dating process–giving flowers being a great example; I do not have any aversion towards giving an engagement ring. I mean sure miners in Liberia have perennially and regularly died mining the diamonds set in these rings and that’s horrible but dude, are these things beautiful or what?!

I mean, think about it this way: This is probably the last thing you have to get your girl before you are assured of a life of sex and sandwiches on demand. Not to mention a life of coming home late and hitting your Down syndrome-afflicted kid because he wouldn’t shut the fuck up when all you really want is to drink your beer while you watch a basketball game. But, I digress.

Besides, the engagement ring signifies your true love for your girl and it’s something she’s going to show all her snobbish, judgmental friends when they go out and shit. It’s also something she’s supposed to wear for the rest of her life, or in my case at least, for two years before we get annulled because of a rather petty argument about who the best American Idol judge is (duh, Randy Jackson obviously).

Anyway, how do you go about purchasing the ring? Two options presented themselves for me:

1. 1.) I could go ahead and purchase the ring with my girl. We could, unromantically, hit up known jewelry stores, she could pick a ring she likes and, if my budget agrees with her, I could buy it right then and there. After which, I could drop to my knees and propose to her right in the jewelry store.She would then acquiesce and say yes amid a dozen other shoppers rolling their eyes.
2. 2.) I could buy the ring without her. I could ask my lady friends who are already engaged for tips about getting the perfect ring. This process invariably involves outdoing a certain lady friend’s fiance and going to a jewelry store asking the sales person “How much karats does this shit pack again?” And saying “0.8 Karats you say? Well that’s just perfect! the rock Kenneth gave Melissa was just 0.7 Karats, fuck it! I’m taking this shit! [immediately phones Kenneth to gloat]

I picked option 2. Seriously, isn’t it a little lame for a girl to have an idea in regards to what it’s going to look like? Similarly, how anticlimactic is it to the girl for her to be cornered into a Q&A session about what her perfect engagement ring should be everyday for three weeks only to be proposed to later on? And really, how lame is it for a girl to actually be physically present when her engagement ring is bought, let alone be proposed to in a Jewelry store?

Besides, there is no better feeling in the world like you and your girl drudging through your seemingly eternity-old relationship, until the day you guys go out to eat in an expensive restaurant and instead of you asking her if “she has 500 bucks on her” because you “don’t want to break your 1,000″ when in reality you’re just really short, like you normally do; she finds your thick ass kneeling down in front of her holding out one of those black folds restaurants use to bring you your bill asking you to marry her. (Well initially, she may think that you’ve really hit rock bottom and are asking her to pay for the entire dinner. Until she opens the fold and sees an engagement ring inside. WOW!)

Much like how mine went though, her surprise might prove short-lived being that you didn’t take the time to ask her what sort of ring she likes nor did you take the time to ask for tips from any of her friends–or from anyone at all for that matter; her surpirise may soon turn into repugnance seeing that the ring you bought resembles something one can find in a flea market or one handcrafted by a drunk jeweller from Chinatown using a broken rhum bottle, a copper wire and some glue.

What’s more important than the engagement ring though is what you do right after you propose. Make sure that you pepper her with “I love you so much’s” and, in my case, make sure to apologize profusely about the ring and say that you felt like getting it yourself was the best option because you want to come off a little romantic.

Failing to do these will end up with her crying and telling you that you spend way too much time streaming ebony and ivory porn in your computer. If she does, you probably should just walk away and forget the entire engagement thing.

A good wife should never question your decisions on how to spend your time–free or otherwise–especially if it involves a black man stuffing the brains out of a petite, probably underage, blond girl. Seriously.

Anyway, in one of my rest room sorties in between bottles, I found myself in a line which is about five people deep. At the end of the hallway where the restrooms were was an area where people who just finished their business in the rest rooms went straight to wash their hands.

So I waited.

And waited.

A couple of minutes later a really hot girl came out of the ladies’ restroom, went by me and proceeded to wash her hands. Now, this is where it gets interesting: The dude standing in line in front of me (who looked like a total douche–tattoos, piercings and all) went ahead and chewed the rag with the girl.

I didn’t really catch everything they were talking about as I was pretty buzzed myself but what I do remember is that after what only seemed like four sentences, the guy managed to elevate his deal from friendly banter to masterful flirting replete with him subtly brushing his hand against the girl’s arm and smoothly leaning in towards her; a move which, at one point, effectively put his face within millimeters of the girl’s.

Again, I couldn’t hear exactly what the were saying to each other but I did catch the guy saying “your hands are wet” at one point before grabbing a paper towel and going in for the kill with “Let me wipe them for you”

A few seconds later I was watching them gracefully duck into the men’s restroom emerging a few minutes later looking all disheveled and shit. Both of them made no conscious effort to conceal any of this on their way out aside from slightly bowing their heads and walking from the restroom straight back to their tables.

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen in the movies before and back then, I thought that if I ever witnessed it happen right in front of me, my reaction would probably go like “Look! Everyone! That dude is either boning that chick in the restroom! Or at least making out with her! But I really think they’re fucking and shit!” or “Man, I’d totally pay 2,000 bucks right now for some action. Maybe I should call my friend Ricky and see if he could spare me some cash so I could hit the strip club”

Instead, my reaction was more along the lines of revulsion and profound disapproval–so much that I wanted to walk over to the girl’s table and say something to the effect of “What you did back there was really mature, I bet your parents would be proud to know that you spent a week night giving a dude you probably don’t even know a handjob. By the way, I’m Mike and I just wanted to ask what you think about checks and promisory notes.”

Up to this day, I honestly don’t know why I felt disgusted. Maybe it’s because I had to wait an additional 5 minutes or so to take a leak? Or maybe it’s because I am saddened by where most young people’s moral compasses point?

Or maybe it’s simply because I’m getting old and, for some reason, I don’t find doing anything lascivious inside a public restroom “cool”.

But what it is, most likely, is that I’m extremely jealous. Yes, I believe that’s it. I mean, all over the metro, young people are having adventurous sex and that night, I ended up almost throwing my laptop over our balcony because it refused to play old, scratched porn VCDs I’ve had since high school.

tss. Rising Internet Star my ass.

I seriously feel like I’d be more “in my element” in a Mexican jail cell than in clubs, because at least I watch those prison documentaries they run on National Geographic, I find Mexican men attractive and experimented with anal sex at one point in my life.

I’m not exactly as adept in dealing with people who wear their collars up, use too much hair product and have dragons printed all over their pants who dance with attractive women while nursing cocktails

God, I hate clubs. And the fort.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not claiming to be the “It guy” of Quezon city and its non-bars or whatever. It’s not like I hung out with Kuya Germs and banged starlets  left and right after hours of clubbing and doing drugs but I feel perfectly comfortable in QC bars. I could buy a couple of Red Horses from the Sari-sari store across our house and then go out and to one of the hole in the wall bars within ten kilometers of our village. Or, I could even drink alone in the porch, send SMS’s to my drinking buddies and, within minutes, have multiple options in terms of where to go via friends who are already out drinking.

(Also, Kuya Germs? What the fuck? I probably thought of him because he seemed like a guy who’s into the same shit I’m into–like luxury, drinking, drugs, and women. Well not really, come to think of it)

Anyway, if there’s one thing I came to realize that night, it has to be the fact that I will never, EVER, have the chance to have sex with women who frequent clubs like the one we went to.

The women are incredibly HOT, I’ll give them that. The thing is, I’m never gonna have none of them. The only circumstances I could ever see myself having sex with any of them under involve a couple of tablets of Ativan, Ajinomoto, lots of alcohol, a black garbage bag and a dull knife. Otherwise, it’s just not possible.

The reason being is because, if you know me well enough, I am:

• Considerably witty
• relatively famous on the Internet
• moderately successful

However, I am also:

• An emotional wreck
• really fat
• unathletic
• ugly

In clubs like these, there is nothing that can compensate for physical deficiencies–no wittiness, no mention of anything intelligent. None. If I did try to talk to those women, it would probably go like this:

Me: “What do I do? Let’s see. Well I make retail websites perform better using avant garde internet marketing techniques. My hobbies are improving myself, waiting for women to finish shopping and saying sorry a lot.”

Girl: [Not paying attention, checking out a douchbag with the topmost 3 buttons of his shirt unbuttoned behind me] “Um, sorry I wasn’t really paying attention. How many pounds can you bench press again?”

Me: “What I’m saying is that I beat Jesus in a game of Trivia Pursuit back in 1988 and guess what? Whenever a girl sucks my dick, Angels magically deposit 70,000 pesos to her bank account”

Girl: [On the phone] “Oh my God! you won’t believe who I saw! Sam fucking Milby! I know right! Anyway, I’ll tell you more later!” [Turning back to me] “How many pounds again?”

So yes, until girls like these become more desperate, I shall only be establishing sexual relationships with them during one of my five daily masturbation sessions. Whatever.

The usual place I do all of these is a Caltex Star Mart on C5 (Yes; if you really want to catch me, I mean to collect on my debts to you or what not, I’m the grumpy guy who usually grabs a C2 Green and pesters the attendant to put “more motherfucking mustard” on my German frank around 11am everyday) And, almost every day, I usually see a girl on one of the little coffee tables they have on the store with her laptop in front of her sipping a small cup of latte.

If I were to wager a guess, I’d say she’s around 24 years old. She’s around 5′3″ tall, always wears those corporate-y black stretchy pants; she sort of looks like that whore bitch girlfriend character from Cloverfield only a little more chubby.

Upon seeing her the first time a couple of weeks ago, I immediately found her attractive–but not attractive enough to be my type. If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you’d know that I’m not into strong-featured, model-looking, corporate-type white girls. I’m more into wash and wear, mocha-colored chicks like this one.

Besides, who the hell spends her mornings in gasoline station convenience stores to “be seen” with her Macbook pro and her cheap latte? eww.

However, when you see the same, moderately attractive girl almost every day on your way to work, you develop this familiarness and come to expect some sort of corteous amity with her.

So, a week ago, after almost a week and a half of regularly seeing this girl on my way to work, I decided to try and give her a smile and a nod in greeting. I mean, afterall, we’ve been exchanging quick, awkward eye contact for quite a while now so I thought smiling and nodding would be the next logical step. Again, just so we are clear here (and by ‘we’ I actually mean ‘my girlfriend and I’), although I find this girl attractive and would definitely give her some wild penis love action (She’s female. She’s alive–the only criteria I have in terms of choosing my sexual partners) under different circumstances, I would never come up to her to flirt or anything. She is just not my type and by smiling and nodding, I was just trying to be friendly.

So went ahead and gave her my best “I’m not a sexual predator (I just look it) and I really just want to say Good day to you” smile and a nod. She looked up, established eye contact with me like she usually does, only this time it was more awkward and shorter.

It’s cool. Maybe she just wasn’t in the best of moods.

The day after that, I saw her again and as I approached the cold beverages section where the table she usually occupies is close to–warm smile and nod ready to fire–she did not even look up at me. It’s all good. Maybe she was busy.

This week, I’ve seen her twice and never did she look up at me and made eye contact like she used to–ever since I tried to smile and nod at her.

Fine.

Darling, I apologize. Trust me when I say that I will no longer show any signs of amiability towards you. What I will do instead is to hiss at you whenever I grab my bottled iced tea and who knows, because you’ve offended me, I might even spit at your shoes.

I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel awkward by being friendly and I’m sorry that my smile is enough to make you feel some kind of muted dread and fear that I might actually come up and talk to you.

Guess what though? Tomorrow, I will come up to you and tell you that I was smiling and nodding at you because some people actually like being friendly and not because I constantly use you as masturbatory fodder and I “accidentally” saw your mobile number on the brown notebook you always keep open on your table.

You fucking harpy.

(Also, I masturbated to you once. And the number I saw? Not sure if that’s even yours)

It’s not that I don’t give flowers to girls I’ve had relationships with in the past but lately, and this is probably because I’ve been screwing up a lot and giving my girlfriend flowers is necessitated more than ever, I find myself regularly visiting flower shops.

I’ve never gotten how flowers work and the polarity between how easily a man can get a girl flowers and how much women enjoy and fuss over them is something that never fails to amuse me. I spent countless hours wondering why and last night, somewhere between watching porn and running my Internet drug cartel I think I stumbled upon the answer.

On a guy’s perspective, sure, flowers seem like a really retarded gift– the women who receive them cannot wear them, they cannot consume them, nor could they grind them into a fine powder which they can sniff the hell out of and get fucked up on (This I’m not sure of. I mean, can you? If you’re interested in trying this out, shoot me an email and maybe we can make a documentary about it or something). In addition to that, they’re considerably pricey and they rot in a few days’ time. So yes, flowers, as seen by guys, are gay, costly gifts that do not have any sort practical use to anyone who receives them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate flowers. In fact, their hefty price tag notwithstanding, I maintain that flowers are nice to look at and they smell really nice. Almost titillating in fact–things that are important to the opposite sex. As someone who’s considerably famous, funny, young and moderately successful yet to date, only managed to sleep with three women without giving them cash or his credit card number in his 26 years of existence; I know that no matter how many times you tell a woman how your family owns a multi-million peso shipping business or how many times you tell a woman about that time you and your friends got into a bar brawl with Diether Ocampo and his asshole friends and ended up breaking a bottle of beer over his head, she will NOT, unless you look and smell nice, and I’m going to quote Mike Francis here, Let you in. In her flower.

But this I don’t think the visual and olfactory stimulation that flowers bring is not the primary reason women enjoy getting them. Let me explain. My first real girlfriend (because we all know that the 36-year-old house help you made out with during your phase of adolescent, sexual hypercuriousity doesn’t count. Although this guy might disagree) was this girl from my freshman year in college. She used to tell me to stop sending her flowers at school because doing so usually sends her classmates into a romance-induced frenzy with her basking in the spotlight, dishing out assumptions as to who this wonderful gift came from.

I mean sure she, irritatedly, told me to stop sending her flowers at school, but I am willing to push all my chips forward and bet that this girl spent hours upon hours masturbating in a  toilet stall at school, excited and drunk with all the attention the flowers I gave her got her. I mean come on, nothing screams “Hey look at me! Somebody finds me attractive and that makes me better than you!” than a 1,700 Peso-gift that will decompose in a matter of days.

Now, THIS is the reason why women like getting flowers. It validates that someone cares and loves them enough to give them something so expensive yet so utterly impractical.

So, with this in mind, the next time I feel compelled to give my girlfriend flowers, I will instead storm into her office, stand on a tabletop and scream “Maffy! Please forgive me! I love you so much! You know how much? This much!” and start burning 500 peso bills. I think I may be able to light up three bills before security personnel take me away and put an end to my extravagant display of affection–the same headline the Philippine Daily Inquirer will use to describe the entire thing on page B4 of their Metro section the day after.

Also, perhaps, after everything is done and over with, my girlfriend and I will have intense make-up sex and maybe live my greatest sexual fantasy- for her to be dressed in a Ginebra San Miguel Benny Cheng jersey, making love to me while I’m wearing a Vhong Navarro Lastik Man mask.