> LongKatutS

To express disgust at a girl’s features, to be very creative in saying that a girl is unpretty is to say ‘mukha siyang longka’, which is to say that the girl is extremely unattractive, undesirable and unadmirable hence, the reference to that select group of people which we shamelessly and deliberately underappreciate in our ignorance and disgusting sense of self-importance. Any random girl we see at the mall or any place else who’s dressed up awfully, coiffed ridiculously, and in possession of a fake Chanel bag, fake Armani shirt, fake Tag Heuer watch, in short, wearer of anything fake is automatically labelled as Mukhang Longka.

I and my friend Jayvee usually get the time of our lives laughing while having coffee at Robinson’s Manila as we do okray all those longka looking people. We would go on duet saying “day-off?” hahaha… I know that I talk so mean always, making fun of people and bitching around. I admit that and i’m sorry, just that at times we can’t avoid it. Sarap eh.

I did not become a maid patronizer over night. This sympathetic paean is brought about by the sudden realization of an unappreciation to our own beloved longka who, I’m guessing is not having the most wonderful time of her life doing our dirty laundry, cooking our precious meals, serving us unworthy princes and princesses of our palatial shanty. And I am now appreciating things I wouldn’t otherwise do if I weren’t in such a crappy state. I now have all the time in the world to speak to plants, watch ants crawl, stare at my books [not read them], lie in bed, fantasize, and touch my… things. I wanna go home for the holiday vacation but work wont permit so.

We’ve had a lot of longka‘s who served and pampered us. Let me generally call them my MANANG. Manang does the most servant-like tasks of sewing my torn underwear, changing my stinky bed and pillow sheets, ironing my favorite underwear whenever it’s still damp to be used [underwears are such precious pieces of garments], buying and preparing food for me if I’m about to engage in an activity which would necessitate food preparation, every imaginable servanty tasks you could think of. Even stuff that I could do myself, she takes the initiative to do. She buys my medicine, charges my cellpone, buys me coke, makes perfect excuses to people who call at home whom I don’t wish to speak to. Very Master and Servant, me and she.

She depresses me occassionally. The laundry is sometimes stinky, the food is often salty and weird, some pants and shirts are unironed just when I am thinking of using the exact same pants or shirts, and she watches too much telenovelas and it annoys me that she doesn’t have the good sense not to find Wowowee entertaining. Plus, she sings some of the songs popularized by that super awful show. But whatever. Her thankless job doesn’t get her fringe benefits and she almost always get flak from the ungrateful masters she serves. I won’t get corny by branding her a hero for being so persevering and patient. I wouldn’t dream of showing her this ode to people like her who spell the difference in the lifestyle for lazy ass creeps such as myself.

Maids. They don’t deserve that much ridicule. This is probably a pitch to prevent people from referring to ugly chicks as mukhang longka. There are more deserving group of women who deserve to be referred to everytime one wishes to refer to something ugly. You could probably just say, ‘Mukhang Supervisor sa McDonald’s’ or ‘Mukhang waitress sa Fridays’. I don’t know why I should say that instead because I have never been wronged by a McDonald’s supervisor or by a TGIF waitress but I sure as hell haven’t been wronged by a maid either.

[*Longka is short for longkatuts, a term geniusly coined by someone who had a penchant for all things demeaning and funny. It is a bastardization of the Tagalog word, katulong.]

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