Of flying fire trucks NO HOLDS BARRED Armida Siguion-Reyna 10/18/2011

Of flying fire trucks

NO HOLDS BARRED

Armida Siguion-Reyna

10/18/2011
We used to have only one driver. I shared him with the children, and since they pretty much took the school bus to and from school, I had most of the driver’s services to myself, marketing, doing the groceries, going all the way to Villalobos in Quiapo to buy laces and zippers for home sewing, and on top of all that, get on with my extra-curricular activities such as theater and opera rehearsals. Sig, my husband, drove our other car. But when we’d go out for dinner, he still wouldn’t ask for the driver, he’d matter-of-factly go behind the wheel, honk the car horn some, and go: “Hoy, tayo na, aba!” As did most the fathers in typical two-car households of before.

There just wasn’t need for a third car, in the past. In Makati, for instance, there used to be more parking spaces than there were cars and establishments. A family man could easily take his brood to eat out, drop them outside whatever restaurant, park the car, and seat himself with wife and kids in time to place his order. He wouldn’t even be missed.

Times have changed, and how. The padre de familia asks wife or oldest child to order him a soup and a salad for his first course while he parks, and oftentimes sits down to what’s grown cold in the kabisera reserved for him. A few more similar almost-missed meals and he hires a driver, who’ll be either good or bad, but that’s another story..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20111018com4.html