Little Kids

During the weekends, I keep myself occupied by visiting a friend of my sister's who lives in the area. She cooks a mean adobo, lives somewhere in the middle of nowhere and shares a huge lot with her son's family that comes complete with several stinky guard dogs that would probably maul you to pieces if you even tried to walk around the compound without the company of at least one of its occupants. In other words, despite the horrible journey to her place, it's
always been worth it, even if it was just for the thrill. And the food. And yes, the booze.



This old woman has two little granddaughters that, like most children, feed on imagination and that mysterious store of energy that evades grown-ups with the tenacity of a Sunday afternoon. I love hanging out with the two kids because 1.) I love kids who can talk endlessly and 2.) I love women with attitude.



We were lounging around in their garden last Saturday evening, waiting for their lola to bring out the Scrabble set, when the eleven-year old Celine, a smart, pensive, eleven-year-old girl who spends her birthdays malling with friends and eating out at Shakeys, complains that her copy of The Sims was on the fix.



Before I could ask her what the problem was, her younger sister, a mischievous little dervish of eight, blurts out that The Sims was bastus.



(For foreigners, bastus is the local word for pornographic.)



I nearly choked on my beer. It brought me back to when I was around their ages. I was at the swimming pool in my uncle's condominium, and it was quitting time. I enjoyed the water, so I didn't leave without a fight, shouting "Let go of me, you piece of shit!" at my brother, who was lifting me out of the pool. That little episode got me a severe mouth thrashing, not to mention the embarassment of being flogged by your folks in front of cousins your age.
Bastus isn't anything as bad as saying "Shit!" at age ten - at least for most kids my generation - but for an eight-year-old to have any concrete idea of what bastus was set off alarms in my head.




Celine is instantly on the defensive. "It is not," she replies stoutly.




It's hilarious seeing the start of a squabble between two kids; I was not disappointed when Bea replied, with a louder tone of voice, "Yes it IS."




"No it isn't."




"It's bastus."




"It is not!"




"Yes it IS!"




They weren't screaming at each other, but their voices had become pretty loud at this point. Bea proved to be the louder of the two though, and her elder sister eventually shut up and pouted at the candlestick burning on the table.




Just as their lola was coming back with the board game, Celine says, "I want to watch Flushed Away."




I was going to ask her if she'd seen the trailer, but Bea beat me to the gun with a loud and proud statement: "I watched Apocalypto the other day!" I nearly choked on my beer again.




Don't you just love them? Little darlings. I hope to have kids as mischievous like them someday.