It speaks a lot about us that when the first volley of picture taking took place, we automatically grouped ourselves near the dessert end of the buffet table. I refer to High School Batch 1973 of St. Paul College, Quezon City.
We met last Saturday at the Hathaway Estates home of Celia in Los Angeles for a reunion that took months in the planning.
Almost half of the 17 Paulinians flew in from the East Coast, three of us from the Philippines. The rest were California residents.
I recognized everyone on sight, but hesitated when I faced Angelica, a pediatrician from Bakersfield. Still soft-spoken, she re-introduced herself. Yes, she seemed the most angelic among us, laughing soundlessly at our selective recollections and later, the tales from the nurses among us.
Marilou recalled the English-speaking classmate who pronounced the word diaphragm “dia-fragem.” No one could recall who it was, but that was good for a guffaw.
Lucy talked about her first years at a US hospital and how a Pinoy colleague was asked by a patient to look for her pocketbook. The nurse asked, “What is the title?” The patient repeated, “I want my pocketbook!” The nurse again asked, “Who is the author?”
Later, she and Lucy found out that pocketbook was a synonym for purse. Or bag, as we called it in the Philippines.
Someone asked who among us was still menstruating. There was still one who said she still had regular periods and how she impatiently looked forward to menopause. Marilou couldn’t hold back an envious, “You mean you’re still lubricating?”
Somehow the talk moved on to penis sizes, and Lucy swore that the men with the longest ones were the Puerto Ricans. She peeked beneath the sheet covering an anesthetized patient and saw a penis that stretched just above the man’s knee. “And that’s not even at an aroused state,” Lucy said.
Marilou said, “Wow! Pity his lover. She must have a lacerated vagina!”
Pinky cried out, “You know why Miguelito Cotto just lost? Because he had to drag around a penis that long and that heavy so he couldn’t avoid Pacquiao’s blows.”
All that talk about phallic sizes made us hungry again. Before long, someone wished aloud for Vigan longganisa with omelette and fried rice. Her wish was Celia’s command. So past midnight, we had an early breakfast while the rest of the City of Angels slept.
At the last round of picture taking, when the chill was in the air, Celia yelled at the guys clicking away with the digital
cameras, “Hurry! Our clitorises are freezing!”
