THE DAY OF THE OSTRICH

Putragis, I tell you!

What's happening to the Philippines ba, OK?

Just a few days ago, desperately trying to beat the rush of the MECQ when I am still allowed to take my thirty minute senior citizen walk around my gated village (Emphasis on GATED) for reasons of health and Vitamin D (Emphasis on HEALTH), I tell you ... I saw a squirrel.

Whatda---?! May squirrel?!  In Cupang, Muntinlupa?

I thought these rodents only existed where chestnuts roast in the open fire and where Jack Frost nips you at the nose.  

My mistake.  

A rat is a rat is a rat, bushy tailed or not.  They do not require four seasons.  When I told one of my friends about this, she who thinks that wearing Gap is beneath her stature said, "Really?  There are squirrels in ... Muntinlupa? I always thought they can only be found in Forbes Park."

Ah, there.  Theory explained.  Squirrels can only live in the tropics if they are in GATED villages. 

In other words, it is almost close to impossible to find squirrels in say ... Kamuning or Malibay or Cubao.  Kasi nga there are not much trees in those places not to mention that Kamuning is a hot spot for COVID19 and not that squirrels are susceptible to the buwisit na virus.  

Or are they?  I am not sure with my limited nine units of Science in college if bats also belong to the rodent family.  But then again, bats still look rats with wings, right? Whatever. Hintayin ko na lang yung vaccine from China before I theorize again.

Which leads me to the point that made me return to blogging after more than a month.

Today, the fourth of August 2020, is an extraordinary day.  

And I am not even taking into consideration the DOH-certified fact that --- wow, oh, wow --- we have more than six thousand three hundred newly record COVID19 cases just this day alone. Iba talaga tayo. Humanda ka, India. Top grosser na kami sa Southeast Asia ... but we will not be happy with just that trivial regional record.  We dream of being the top of the list when it comes to all the nations and even continents East of Trumpland.  Putsa, Pinoy Pride, Dude.  Today Asia, tomorrow the world.

While Thailand and Vietnam are back to enjoying their Tom Yum and Pho Hoa, we Pinoys are busy panic buying as we revert to MECQ as if the day after tomorrow is the end of the world or the series Probinsiyano.  It is as if we never experienced MECQ to realize that groceries and palengkes will not close ... and that the color of money will still be the same two weeks later.  Pero, we Pinoys make panicking a national past time, di ba?

And I am not also thinking of the latest scandal involving PhilHealth or why I need to convince some of my friends of a different partisan persuasion that dipping their disposable face masks in a can of gasoline will not make them reusable. I had to subtly, carefully and politically correctly tell them that even if an unleaded gasoline soaked face mask can certain keep the COVID away, wearing one for more than five minutes and sniffing all that petrol may provide another route to bring them back to the waiting arms of Jesus.  And please keep away for more than one meter from anyone who is lighting a cigarette, ha?

So what makes today exciting and extraordinary.

Because an ostrich made such a fuss among the netizens. 

That Big Bird got more publicity and attention than the return of the Queen of All Media to television or the travails of  Liza Dino in the FDCP.  Can you imagine that?  

You know that times are really weird when people are more excited about this giant bird running down the streets of a Quezon City subdivision (read: GATED VILLAGE) and creating such a havoc in the internet than the number of pandemic victims in the country ... or that she is finally returning to television with her own TV show after almost four years of absence.  What's wrong with us people, ha?

I mean ... onli in da Pilipins, right?  

Only here in our beloved republic do we have people actually keeping this ... exotic bird as a pet.  Right in the heart of the city. 

Said owner could have kept ducks, geese, fighting cocks, love birds, parrots ... but they had to have the ostrich.  I am still figuring out why: of course anyone can claim an ostrich as a pet but in a middle class village in the City of Stars?  Alam ba ito ni Joy Belmonte?

 And I dare ask, did the neighbors known that next door ... somebody is actually keeping these giant birds as pets?

"Mama, Mama ... ano yung ulo na sumisilip sa bakod ng neighbor natin?"

"Nakasampa sa bakod?"

"Hindi. Sumisilip lang ... malaki ang mata, mahaba ang leeg, kalbo."

"Ha?"

"Oo, Mama ... malaki ang mga mata at mahaba ang leeg at  ..."

"Anak,  tapatin mo nga ako. Grade Three ka pa lang ... ano na ang tinitira mo?  Bigay ba sa yo ng iyong Kuya?"

What I found extremely exciting were the videos of that poor creature running down the otherwise everyday street and with people literally freaking out at the mere sight of the unimaginable coming to life.  

I mean how would you feel if you are plantito watering your plants and an ostrich passed by?

"Mama, Mama ... may malaking ibon sa labas!"

"Lintek na! Bakit ka tumingin?!  Ang bata-bata mo pa kung anu-ano nang kabastusan ang nakikita mo."

Like that.

Or even that classic line overheard in the actual video: "Hindi naman lumilipad ang ibon na yan, di ba?"

'Teh, pag lumipad yan ... End of Days na talaga. Pramis.

Of course the more au courant expressed such fashionable shock upon sight of the video by saying, "Somebody played Jumanji." 

And the less informed retorted: "Jumanji? What dat? Kasama si Kim Chiu?"

But the more knee jerk reaction from the Everyday Folk goes, " T--g ina!  Ang laki! Puwede bang iadobo yan?" 

Somehow after four months of quarantine, you no longer know what is real.  

You suffer from a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome even if you are staying in a Gated Village to think that you are seeing African Wild birds traversing down Tomas Morato to order a cup of Starbucks.

So we had out excitement for the day.  The best part of that whole trope was when the Ostrich reached the guard house of the gated village and the security put down the barrier to stop the creature from exiting kasi wala raw ID.

We all imagined the dialogue taking place as this was happening.

GUARD:  'Day, quarantine pass mo?

BIRD:  Ay, sorry, Kuya ... naiwan ko sa balai.

As the bird nervously turned around to trace back his beleaguered path home.

Onli in da Pilipins, I tell you.

PS:  Later on, the Big Bird was wrestled down to a hammer lock by two of the Kagawads.  Yup, the humans won.