westbound: fierce

"Ano laman ng bagahe mo," the operator of the luggages x-ray asked as my bags passed through his machine.

"Ah, gamit ko," I replied with a great deal of sarcasm in my voice.

"Ano yan, me mga pabilin ba sa'yo," he followed up obviously not catching my remark.

"Damit ko lang laman niyan. Sino magbibilin sa akin?"

"Bagong bili?"

"No?! Where are you going with these questions," I blurted out as I picked up my things and walked away, not bothering to wait for his reply. It was pointless and he had already wasted more time than I would normally give a stranger.

In under twenty minutes, I managed to check my luggage in, pay the terminal fee, check with the local immigration and proceed to the departure area. Now comes the hard part, I have to wait for my departure which was like an hour and half away. I refuse to tinker with my iPod or my PSP or even with my mobile phone. This would be a day's worth of travel so I need to save my gadgets' power for when I get bored.

The flight attendant with the very DJ'ish voice announced that the plane is now ready for boarding. I picked a seat in the exit row so I can have more leg room. It will be a four-hour flight from Manila to Tokyo so I need to be really comfortable.

My seatmates were boring - I was parked between a big Caucasian and a big pain in the ass, so I chatted with the flight attendant during the flight. I like her because I can feel that she was genuinely friendly. I hope more attendants would be more like her - pretty yet definitely not a stuck-up.

Oh, there was also this male flight attendant who has this freakishly white skin. No, more like translucent since one can already see all the veins in his arms. I spent several minutes debating with Manolito if he was on Glutathione. Definitely. And to those those who are into broad-shouldered, tapered-waist, doe-eyed, translucent skinheads, they might say that he'd also fall under the pretty category.

Well, most of our local flight attendants are eye candies. Company policy must include an unwritten line like this - accept people with fierce beauty only.