My Collection of Silly Lists

Seeing as how everyone has done lists:
-Mama Drama has a nice list
-Cynical Dad has started a listing of his top 100 albums (however he has admitted the Who is not at or near the top. Even so with this dimished list--it is something to keep one's eye on.)
-Mrs. Fortune from July 10, Stuck In Elmo's world must have had the world's worst day ever!!

My list. I am white -- neon white, and, even though I grew up in the hills of Ohio, I am so backward I cannot even qualify as a redneck. I am married to a Filipina! She's educated. She has traveled the world, worked on 4 continents. She is funny.

She sent me the following list:

You May be Married to a Filipina If:

1- Your refrigerator is always full but you cannot find any food that you recognize
(I do the shopping most of the time, so this usually is not applicable)

2- Instead of a dowry, you got the whole bill for the wedding and honeymoon
(in the US the bride's folks traditionally foot the bill, oddly in the Philippines it is the groom's parents. We went into debt on day one)

3- Most of the decorations in your house are made of wicker
(not remotely true, yet...)

4- You are expected to be able to read her mind just by watching her eyebrows move up and down and which way her lips are pointed
(boy oh boy after 12 years I still have not mastered this skill!! I really really wish I could do this)

5- All her relatives think your name is Joe
(nope. just a dumb cliche)

6- The instant you are married you have 3000 new close relatives that you can't tell apart
(ummm...I have a pre-marriage story about this...)

7- Your house isn't really on fire, but there is a very charred fish right on top of the stove burner
(we had this once...)

8- All the desserts are sticky and all the snacks are salty...
(tooooo true!!)

9- She eats her fruit with giant salt crystals and her fried chicken with ketchup
(YES!)

10- Even the ketchup tastes weird... very weird
(2 words - banana ketchup)

11- You throw a party and everyone is fighting to chop the leathery skin off a dead pig
(not at any of our parties!!)

12- All your kids have 4-5 middle names
(well, b.imp does)

13- Your in-laws take 10 years to acknowledge your existence and to call you by something other than "that white guy"
(I don't think I could ever be known as anything than 'that white guy')

14- You try to call her up on the phone and someone tells you "for a while" and you want to know "for a while, what??"
(THIS HAPPENED!! ALOT!!!)

15- You are trying to go to sleep and she keeps asking for the comFORT'r, and you ain't got a clue what she's talking about
(can anyone say BLANKET??)

16- Your first Christmas present is some funny looking baggy see-thru shirt made out of leftover lace doilies
(actually I want one but w.imp keeps denying me that pleasure)

17- Your phone bills are all international and average 3 hours per call
(...and nobody thought to tell me about how international calling rates and regular phone rates are different...VASTLY different)

18- She sweeps with something that witches usually fly around on
(now we have 5-6 of them)

19- Her idea of classy, expensive champagne is Asti Spumante
(well, w.imp's idea of class is sooo far above Asti Spumante that it is pretty ridiculous)

20- The rice cooker is on 24 hours a day and uses up 50% of your electric and food budget
(well, we do eat and inordinate amount of rice. Even the imps prefer rice over potatoes...)

21- On your first trip to the Philippines, you have 18 giant boxes that weigh 1000 pounds each and your "carry on" luggage requires a small forklift truck. The same luggage is over filled with things that cost an average of 15 cents each like old magazines and M&Ms
(this would be my 2nd-5th trips. the first trip could have landed me in prison. Live and learn folks...)

22- the worst part is when you get off the plane, the same stuff you've been
hauling around half way around the world is available in every store in the airport for
half the price!
('nough said)

23- The first time she's pregnant you have to go out at 4:00 in the morning
looking for some weird type of greasy sausages
(Nope! Burger King!)

24- You buy a new $500 freezer so she can store 200 pounds of SPAM that was on sale
(if we had a freezer that large it would be full of spam and bungose)

25- She gets really excited by sucking the fat out of pig knees
(YuCK! She does dig the fat out of about everything else)

26- Your daughter gets her ears pierced when she's 2 minutes old but your
sons are not circumcised until they turn 13
(Yeah, this was discussed and b.imp was 'fixed' before we left the hospital. Some traditions can stay in the islands)

27- Her favorite sauce is called "patis," Americans call it turpentine
(Pah-Teece. Learn how to say it so you do not have to taste it!)

28- She actually thinks that bowling and golf and billiards are real sports
and are more important than baseball and football
(due to our early indoctrination procedures, this has been corrected)

29- You were married 5 years before she explained to you that "ARAY!" doesn't
mean "ooh, baby!"
(w.imp actually did not explain it until we saw this list. However I figured out the difference on the 1st night of our honeymoon...)

30- She prefers bistek to beef steak
(yes!)

31- you still don't know what's the difference between manong and manok
(I think one is a chicken...)

32- She goes to the movies just for the AC
(w.imp goes anywhere just for the AC)

33- Her homeland has more Megamalls than islands
(I believe! I believe!)

34- Before every holiday and visit, her sisters fax you a 10 page "bilins" list which says "suggestion only."
(and if you think they are only suggestions...)

35- Your kitchen table has a merry-go-round in the middle
(not yet but we still have hope)

36- Her friends are named Chinky, Girlie, Boy and Bimbo and you are not allowed to smirk
(I have bite mark scars on the insides of my lips...)

37 - All your place settings has the silverware backwards and there are no knives
(I usually do have the only knife at the table)

38- She washes her hair with a bucket and her car with a broom
(I take the 5th on this one...)

39- She "cleans" her closet by throwing all the crap into your closet
(wait a minute! I get a closet? Our first 3 years in our house I lived out of a suitcase and a cardboard bureau)

40- When she says nothing is wrong that is when there is trouble!!
(This is endemic of all women!)

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: You are pretty proud of yourself because you think you snagged up for yourself some unique, rare, tropical goddess type until you go to the Philippines and can't tell her apart from anyone else in the whole country
(unless she's taller than 5'1", then it's a bit easier)