Un-frickin'-believable

"Ano bang hinahanap mo?" (What are you looking for?)

"Pagkain para sa katulong." (Food for the maids.)

That is just a portion of the lengthy conversation my mom and aunt had the other day while we're in the car on our way to Muntinlupa. I knew who they were talking about but like I said, I hate namedropping here in my little bit of cyberspace that I regard with much love and respect. While I'm not really sure why I'm writing this right now, I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm not here to condemn. I'm just dreadfully disappointed.

I was born and raised in a family that required household help. I've known a lot of yayas in my younger years and all of them were treated humanely by my parents. My mom and dad had the heart for the underprivileged because they were once like them. Neither my mom nor my dad claims to have been born with a silver spoon in the mouth. Although my parents made sure their kids never experience what they went through when they were younger, they taught us to be one with the people, even the ones they pay to make our lives easier. And so my siblings and I grew up to be just that. We never treated the underprivileged differently just because we're a step higher in the social ladder than they are. We were good to our yayas just as they were good to us. In a way, they contributed to our basic social formation which started in the home.

My dad was a heavy buyer that's why I liked going to the grocery with him more than my mom (my mom was so frickin' uptight with budgeting and stuff). Back in the day, we would raid the grocery store twice a month like zombies are going to attack the next day. My dad liked hoarding food so he could always have something to munch on whenever he's drunk or his favorite cartoon is on. So every time we shop for groceries, he'd have his own cart and so would I. Unless the cart is so unforgivably full, we don't queue for the cashier. That's basically one of the explanations why I grew up LITERALLY.

So my dad bought food a lot but whatever he buys for himself, he also buys for all of us including our helpers. What we ate, they also ate. We treated them like family. That's the reason why I'm so repulsed upon overhearing my mom and aunt's conversation whose excerpt you just saw at the beginning of this entry. Kung makapagsalita naman, kala mo bibili lang ng dog food. (Woman sounded like she's gonna buy dog food.) And the worst part is, she is actually one of my aunts from my dad's side of the family. So frickin' sad.

Well, I guess shame on you, Tita. That's all I'll say here because the words that could describe how I felt upon hearing that little story, nobody will ever have the heart to read.

Un-frickin'-believable.