the funsucker

"Are you kidding? You think you can be me?!" "Of course I can, Watch me.. Oh, everyone's out to get me... You're ruining my life..." "It's easy to be you.. I'll suck the fun out of everything.." "I do not suck the fun out of everything!" "Fun sucker!" "Oh, this is ridiculous." (Freaky Friday, 2003)

It was the start of a weekend trip. the type you can never get out off. where everyone just has to be virtually present. fake smile in tow, i sat there, on the back seat of our family van, waitin for mom to finish checkin stuff on our house before we could leave.

just like any other normal family, mine's made up of loving parents and happy kids. now by loving, i meant overbearing, and by happy, i meant misunderstood, so it only fits that by normal, i meant dysfunctional.

family includes parents and five siblings. two of them were toddlers, and two of em were girls roughly a few years younger than i am. and then there's me. i usually get along well with those two girlies. i'm the eldest and it takes a no-brainer to figure out that we were at that whirlwind stage of youthful angst where we consider any type of family bonding cheesy and so totally uncool. well. least i did. generally, on trips like these, the only thing worth lookin forward to is the time spent goofin around with my two dorky sisters. boy do we tease each other A LOT. 

and i could only smile at how the humorous instances we find ourselves in, 
usually results to the silliest laughtrips ever known to man.

that moment wasn't an exception.

"tenenenenenen ten-tenenenenen..."

"rock and roll hanggang umagaaa... sugod mga kapatiiid.."

"tayo ay magsama-samaa.. iwagayway na ang banderaaaaa..."

"shugod mga shofatiiid... "

that, was me singing. falsetto. with hand actions. and a touch of hairography on the side. 

and that, was what made my two sisters crack up like two deranged hyenas on powdered meth. 

oh that judgemental rear-view mirror smirk? that was my dad.

if you didn't get it i can only assume that you're not from around here. the song was in tagalog, and i was butchering the lyrics by singin it in swardspeak. translating it to gay lingo. simply put, i was faggin up the words, which, apparently, annoyed my dad like hell.

"Shugod mga-"

"Stop it Clay. Frankly, I don't find your little antic the least bit funny," says the party-pooper i call dad.
instinctively, my sisters and i looked at each other and kept silent. but only for a few seconds..

"..SHOFATIIIID!"
and my sisters burst into fits of loud, boisterous guffaws. thus, we all giggled nonstop.
you'd think that that would put just a tad bit of comical shift to my dad's face, but no..

"Continue and I guarantee you i'll give you one hell of a slap YOU WILL NEVER forget,"
says the aggravated father. a cue for more silence. you could hear the laughter gradually die.

i was in the middle of composing myself, when i turned and saw the look on my sisters' faces. i secretly laghed at how funny the situation we're in was. i was doin a great job on containing myself, until one of 'em let out a burst that again sent us rolling on the floor howling our guts off with wild laughter. that's a few minutes of unbridled unadulterated craziness that would've been real fun and all,

if only i hadn't slipped...
"Sugod mgaa shofaa-"

PAK!

what the -ouch?!! he wasn't kidding!
that WAS indeed one hell of a slap.

ugh. funsucker.

reluctantly, i shut myself up. tears start to well up. don't panic clay. don't you dare fuckn panic. glancing at my side, i noticed my sisters doin their best not to laugh at what just happened. then a smile. and a giggle. for an asstard dicktator, he sure can bitchslap like a queen. a few more giggles and i just shrugged, palm on my face, shook my head, and put the issue to rest.

i could be pretty funny if i tried. i just don't get why my dad has to be unreasonably uptight with things, like an old stereotypical geezer who sucks the fun out of things. parents are never cool. not if they tried. not even if they get their own facebook acount. which reminds me, dad has one. mom too.

sigh. i called his bluff and paid the price. my face wasn't really that sore. what hurt more is the way he looked at me. i sat there tryin my best to push back my tears. rattled. dumbfounded. but just like every other outburst i get from him, i'd usually just shrug it off, and laugh. pretend like i never felt embarassed, or hurt, or what have you, even if i was secretly dying to murder him on the spot. takes practice but definitely pays off.

clay just lurves deflecting hate with rays of sunshine, bright moonbeams, love's heartstrings, unicorn dreams, sugary niceness and poofy clouds with happy faces, wide smileys and colorful pastel rainbows.
i remember that bein a facebook status once. and i repost it each time i encounter 'em haters.

my dad's a bore. but he's still my dad, and i lo- err, uhm, well i sometimes i could, maybe, somewhat, be kind of, but just by a tiny bit, a wee bit, appreciative of him bein my dad and all... haha. fact is, after twenty-two years of existence, i practically learned to live with it.

but sometimes, just sometimes,
i can't help but wonder how he'd react if i post this on his facebook wall.