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Hey Cute Colegiala on the Jeep

You're young. You're pretty. And you've got your problems up your sleeve. It's a pleasure sitting next to you on this crowded thoroughfare.

You're looking doggedly at nothing in particular, alternating with quick, furtive glances to your phone. There isn't a new message from Viber or Whatsapp, or whatever it is you young whippersnappers use to chat nowadays, but you channel absently through your active messages anyway, before shifting to the true purpose of your charade: to look at the time.

Oh I know it's just at the upper-right section of the screen, but I can see the quick darts your eye makes to that corner of your phone.

Your breeding - if at all - prevents you from admitting this out loud, but you can't stand where you are right now. I mean, right right now. This jeep on this busy thoroughfare, with the radio on full blast playing a song by Sugar Ray, a song from a band that's not your generation. You'd rather listen to something from today, Psy or Ylvis or something from Miley fucking Cyrus, I dunno.

These people stink to high heavens! Where has that old man with the Manila folder been to, to get so sweaty?! And that fat man in the candy-colored shirt, what is wrong with his hair? Why doesn't he comb it? For crying out loud, has he been out on the road all day? Hasn't he heard of the washroom?

And the driver, my gosh. Can't he play something from this decade?! What is this song, something from the 90s. I was a CHILD then!! How uncool can you get?

Ew, here comes one of the gusgusin street kids. What is that on his hand? A rag? What. The. Fuck. He better not touch my Galmia Pepes (or whatever shoes you were wearing), with that dirty thing, he better - oh shit, oh shit YOU DID NOT JUST DO THAT. Fuck fuck fuck what do I do my shoes are DIRTY NOW you frakking street urchin.

This is what you're thinking in the short span of time it takes us to travel from Recto to Sta. Mesa. I don't need to read your mind. I can tell all of this, with the toss of your shoulder, with the slight glances you make my way, with the purse of your lips.

Ah! Finally it is your stop. You demurely yell "Para ho!" to the driver, who's in the throes of "Boys Don't Cry", and as he (tries) to pull up to the curb, you swivel your ass doorward, in preparation for disembarking.

And then you're out the door.

Good-bye, cute colegiala. Too bad. You were pretty. But you've got a terrible attitude.

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