This is Saturday. He used to go to the Philippine Military academy so he's very intereted in stuff like guns and war.
It was my friend Saturday’s birthday. He and William, another friend of mine pooled their money together and now they were going to treat all of us and some girls from a nearby girls dormitory.
Everybody dressed up. I was so excited since Saturday and William were taking us to eat at a seafood restaurant. (When there’s free food, everyone’s interested!). There were about 15 boys and to our surprise, 20 girls mostly William’s friends.
Saturday had rented two cars for the occasion and all the girls went with william in one car, and us boys with Saturday in another car.
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This is James, the dorm's resident war freak. He and Saturday get along very well.
James was the designated driver and he drove us to this little restaurant were we all sat down at these long tables.
All the girls sat at one table and William had to sit with them (to entertain them.)
All the boys sat at another table and made small talk. Each table ignored the other. No attempt was made to break the ice.
I asked Saturday if anymore people were coming and he told me that Mandy, Ramon, Brian and a couple of others were coming in their own car.
As we were speaking, Mandy, Ramon and some other guys arrived with a bottle of wine.
“Happy birthday!” They cheered.
The girls gave a collective shudder and pretended not to notice them.
Mandy and Ramon didn’t care what the girls thought. They carried on a conversation between the other boys with lots of loud “putang ina pare’s” and acted like boors.
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A mestizo guy in the dorm was called the "tax collector" behind his back because he was always asking for loose change so that he could use the pay phone to call his girlfriend.
The food began to arrive. Saturday and William urged us to eat a lot since a lot more was coming. As the first bowl of shrimp reached our table, Mandy made a grab at it with his bare hands and dumped most of the shrimp on his plate
He laughed like crazy and we laughed a bit at his antics. A second bowl of shrimp then arrived but suddenly both Mandy and Ramon grabbed it at the same time and had an impromptu contest on who could take the most shrimp!
They laughed and laughed.
The other boys were getting annoyed. We wanted to eat too!
When the third bowl arrived Mandy this time made a grab for it as usual, But as he was busy holding the bowl, we all rose up and grabbed ALL the shrimp that Mandy had dumped on his plate!!
All the girls stared at us with their mouths wide open.
Thanks to Mandy, the LaSallian center boys had made quite an impression on them.
