The Funtasian

I was so excited to come home even with the nasty infection in my leg. I was from Yaphank.  Generations of my family before me were from this town. Everything was going to go back to normal. Well...you dont just go away to the Philippines and come back to Yaphank "normal" without some sort of post traumatic stress syndrome. Traumatized was an understatement.  I was changed forever.

The first thing I saw when I ran back into my Grandpas home was a big black dog on the floor of the kitchen and my grandpa sitting at the table. Naturally, I looked at my mother and said, "Don't eat him!"  He was the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. His name was Bones. Ironic for the biggest Newfoundland Collie mix I had ever seen. He would be my very best friend for the next 7 years. I can't lie, I worried for his life with a full breed in the house...

We lived in the upstairs of my Grandfathers house. Prince Ben slept with my mom of course a lot, but during his screaming fits of seperation anxiety during the day, they threw his chunky, I want my mommy 24/7 ass in my room. Have I mentioned how when he was born, I was sent away for a week? Not bitter at all...

I did all I could to shut the little prince up. I sang him songs of my people like...Mommy had a little dog, little dog, little dog, Mommy had a little dog...til she ate it. Ben did NOT like my songs...go figure?

I came home speaking fluent tagalog. I was now bilingual. This would be a problem when I went back to my elementary school after being gone. The teacher was not a fan or impressed of my multi - cultural ways. She sent home letters to my mother on how I couldn't speak english. She sent me to the school speech therapist who laughed when she asked me to look at pictures and say what they were because the teacher was wrong. Worst of all she called me names to the other kids & even egged them on when they teased me. I can hear you.  I certainly showed her when I was able to read before anyone else. She mocked me in front of the whole class and said I couldn't do it. Well...if there is one thing about me everyone should know is that if you tell me I can't, I will go out of my way to show you I can. Her only reply to me reading in front of the class was, "Wow, I guess you really can read". No shit. Never underestimate the brain power of an Asian no matter the percentage.

I loved being home. White Grandpa made me coffee everyday on the sly & snuck me peanut butter cups. He always told me I was full of bolognie with all my stories of the Philippines. I had a new dog, the muppets were on tv & of course I had little brother to torture. It wasn't without its faults. My Grandpa rented his back rooms to stinkers. I have never smelled an odor this bad in my life. It smelled like the Brookhaven Landfill or a dead animal.

Bones would sneak upstairs to be with me at night. Hopping the gate and sleeping on my floor especially during storms. I warned Bones that he could be dinner if he wasn't careful especially since he was so hefty. Whenever she caught him under my bed she would scream holy bloody murder at him to get out. I thought she was scared she would eat him too so she refused to get attached. Had he been a turkey on leash, it would be a whole 'nother story. Nom Nom Nom...

My mom would walk to the deli and post office everyday. I always went along since it was right around the corner. The dog would come too, sneaking away from gramps and taking a short cut through the lake to beat us there. I spent my time at the deli crawling on the floor looking for change under the counter so I could buy Cracker Jacks. All I needed was a quarter. Man food was expensive when you didn't kill it yourself.

I learned very early on how mean people could be about race. I knew I was different & so did everyone else in town. They whispered about my mother and I didn't like it. Five year olds have the attention span of a gnat, but we are not deaf. At least in the Philippines being half white wasn't held against me as much as being half Asian in an all white town called Yaphank. Hide yo dogs, hide yo cats...we were here to stay Pankers. MUAHAHAHAAA....

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I have always loved Halloween. Its by far one of my favorite holidays. Simply because you go around collecting FREE sugar disguised as chocolate and Smarties. 

In the Philippines there was no trick or treating. (I can only imagine what they would give out. YUCK!) There was going to the grave yard and having picnics with your deceased loved ones. OOOOH the fun never stops there, but this blog isn't about the Flip side. Its about my disgust for useless Halloween candy. Yaphank is not the easiest place to go trick or treating. I grew up on a Service Rd to the Long Island Expressway. Houses were very far apart and there were not many. It was dangerous and you had to walk a miles for one Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. 

The best part was coming home and emptying my pillow case loaded with treats. Ok the best part was dressing my brother up as a girl every halloween. 

Even to this day, I love emptying my little spawns of satans pillow cases on the floor to go thru. I mean steal from. There is always the good pile and the I wouldn't eat this shit pile if it was the last candy on earth. Of course the tootsie rolls get their own pile because there are so MANY. 

You know the candy I am talking about. Here is a list of the Halloween candy that should be banned.

Laffy Taffys - Disgusting, specifically the banana ones.

Flavored Tootsie Rolls - We get enough chocolate ones, just stop.

Mary Janes - I happen to love Mary Janes but they come wrapped in the wax paper. They tend to melt and leak all over the pillow case that you are hiding from your parents candy tax. 

Palmer Chocolates(AKA The Hersheys Imposter) - They suck at Easter, why would they be any better at Halloween. Stop being so cheap. 

Brachs Peppermints & Butterscotch(you've been saving these for a year) - By the time Halloween rolls around from last Christmas, they are melted and attached to the plastic. Useless. Cant even give them to my horse. 

Foil Wrapped Chocolate Coins- Its bad enough when you get real pennies in a ziplock but I want quiet money and until Hersheys makes foil wrapped coins, I dont want to see them in my pillow case.

Dum Dum Lollipops - One or two of these at the yearly well visit is a lot. 53 of them in my treat bag. No thanks

Pretzels - Um no, if I want free pretzels, I'll go to the bar, Unless you want to throw a beer in the bag, then I'm good

Now & Laters - They are much easier to unwrap these days but back then you couldnt get the wax paper off. One thing hasn't changed, they can still pull your fillings out and still taste like you're licking flavored wallpaper. 

Warheads - Simply said, candy should not punish your taste buds

Mad Dogs - Foam at the mouth gum balls should only be used as revenge candy against co-workers (yes I have)

Jelly Beans - At least these arent as old as the left over christmas candy but they still suck the same 

Good & Plenty - I hate black licorice and these are black licorice disguised as pretty candies. I'm on to you. 

Before my mother hoarded Fama's in our home, most of them lived in the Philippines and I guess dragging your family around the globe to visit her people was a must do.

It was going to be my second trip back "home" as my mother referred to it. I deemed my her crazy because my home was in Yaphank.  I was not going anywhere especially that shit hole (yea yea, I know. There's plenty of beautiful places there, but I have never seen them so they can't possibly exist) and if i was, I was going to make it very very difficult. Never underestimate a five year old half breed who doesn't want to leave her kindergarten crush at Christmas to live in a shanty on the side of a river with a pig farm AND go to catholic school. Oh and even worse, I was forced to go to church every damn day. They sold colorful popcorn at church. I refused to step inside without the popcorn. This pissed off the natives. I received a lot of slanty side eyes. Whatever, I chew loudly.

First attempt at sabotaging the trip back home...the PASSPORT PHOTO. I wiggled and fidgeted. I kicked my feet around. I wouldn't look at the camera. I played with my pig tails. Then the good news came. The pictures couldnt be used!! With good news comes bad news. They used my baby picture from the first trip back "home". FUCKERS

Hmmm I must try again..."They will never get the small pox vaccine in me".  No vaccine, no Phillippines. I keep forgetting I'm only five and little. Little with ninja like skills. Two parents, a nurse's assistant, Nurse Ratchet and the Filipino Pediatrician(Well played Mom, getting one of your own) held me down on a chair while I screamed til my eyes swelled shut and they put the horrible burning blue poison small pox vaccination on my back so I couldn't reach it. When they were done, I hopped up and said with a smirk, "That didnt hurt at all".   I think the broken blood vessels all over my face was enough to stave off a beating when I got home. Someone should have warned me that the vaccination area would swell, itch & scab so badly I would take my shirt off constantly and show everyone my big nasty scab. Well, not much has changed in 35 years except I dont need a vaccination to remove my top at any given time.

I was five and fresh out of ideas. Guess I was headed to Shanty Town. My brother Ben was just a baby when we went to see the Fama-ly again. Ben was named after my mothers father so we needed to bring the second Half Breed Fama back "home". So its Prince Benjamins fault...he will pay for this.

The plane ride was long and I was not happy to be in a giant tin can 30,000 feet in the sky built by the lowest bidder. What's a girl to do? SCREAM...LOUDLY til we landed in Japan. My dad bought me markers & origami paper to shut me up. Stupid, Stupid man. Now I can pass my "HELP! I have been kidnapped from Yaphank" note onto a Round Eye. OK one little problem. I was 5 and couldn't spell words like kidnapped or Yaphank and the only Round Eye on the plane was my dad. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!

After what seemed like 17 days on a plane we landed. There were no terminals, you are just dumped out onto the hot tarmac. This didnt surprise me at all. It was 5000 degrees, I was in HELL and I was never getting back to Yaphank (the lesser of two evils).

Tomorrows Installment of Inside the FLIP side..."Daddy why dont they name their dogs here?" , I didn't kill the chickens, I am NOT going back to that school. See you on the Flip Side ;)

Of course my darling little Asian Mommy was kidding when she blurted this out to the entire cafeteria, but they all believed her. Why wouldnt they, she was the lunch lady. The keeper of extra tater tots, ice cream cups and free chocolate milk. Did I mention my mom also put me in band camp every year? I didnt get frisky with a flute though, no girth.

I didn't look like my parents. I was the whitest of half breeds with dark curly cowlicked hair. My skin was milky, my big eyes green & almond shaped.  My nose little & not spread like my moms or huge like my dads. My lips were tiny but my cheek bones were high & my face flat. My DNA was clearly fucking with me. From the neck up my body was confused on what country it was from. People said I would be so pretty once I grew into my features.  Really?? I mean how bad could it get? My mom was the Filipino lunch lady that told people I wasn't hers and sent me to band camp. I used to say when I was born that I was only smacked in the face once with a shovel.

My eyes were slanty enough to be made fun of, but the unibrow that swept across my face was furry enough that I might have been something worse; a Panker. Having my mother as the lunch lady confirmed everyones suspicions. Yup, that kid is a chink, so every exchange student of Asian descent that entered school was going to be sat next to me so they didnt feel out of place. It didnt matter that I didnt speak Korean, Chinese or Japanese because I was supposed to magically understand what the full breeds were saying in their native tongues. Dudes, I was racially profiled in elementary school!

While everyone in the cafeteria had cool food in their Star Wars lunch boxes, in my very boring, uncool, plastic Tupperware lunch carrier were things like rice, corned beef and potatoes, but believe me when I say it was NOT the Irish kind. I was often asked what I was eating with a snicker, so my reply was always dog food. That kinda back fired because now I was the half breed, adopted daughter of the Filipino lunch lady who was sent to band camp and ate dog food. Got Alpo?

Stay tuned...tomorrow we are leaving on a jet plane to a land far far away. See you on the Flip side ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is a Fama you ask? Its a little bit of loco, with a dash of even more crazy and a whole lot of skeletons but it is my family and half of who I am. My mother is one of 13, well 14 really, but whos counting. 14 brothers and sisters meant lots of Famas running loose without weekend passes. My mother was the only sibling to marry outside her culture & hence the first Half Breed Fama was born.

Having an Asian stay at home mother meant being raised Asian. I was spoken to in Tagalog. I learned to cook Filipino food at an early age and I ate what was in the "Mystery Pot" for fear of being forced to eat something worse like Balut or Pigs Blood. (yea im puking in my mouth a little too right now)

For as far back as my elephant memory can remember, there was always a Fama or a whole Famaly hiding, I mean taking refuge, I mean living in my home. I started to refer to it as the Fama Half Way House of Horrors. They were completely taking over and I was scared I would never see a baked potato ever again.

I often went down to the lake behind my house to catch dinner with my Uncle because thats what the natives do back home. He didnt like catching fish with a pole so one afternoon he went into my Grandpas workshop and came out with a spear gun he hand made. He liked to shoot from the "trees". Tarzan meets Magyver by way of Manila. My brother thought it was the coolest thing ever. I thought this man is one egg roll short of Lucky Chans combination platter.

Now remember, I am half white and chose freely on which country I wanted to be on any given day. Having all these Famas in the house with their babies and what not meant I was greatly outnumbered by the Bruce Lee look alikes so I pulled the white card often. As I got older my Tagalog was lacking and told them it was rude to speak in tongues in front of an American. Sometimes their language got so advanced I could only listen for my name but I learned the faster and louder they spoke meant someone (usually another Fama) was coming to town and they were bringing more Famas to live with us. It also meant my Dads white man does a Filipino accent wasn't going away anytime soon and he sucked at it.

My only refuge from this madness was going to school but then the unthinkable happened. My mother got a JOB and not just ANY job.

DUN DUN DUN...

My mom was now the freakin CAFETERIA LADY at my elementary school. Yea my mouth was agape too and not from her just being the lunch lady but from the smell of tator tots that wofted off her body daily.

...to be continued with "No Jeannie's Not My Dawtuhh, She Adopted"...Inside the Flip Side