I found my mom and lola cleaning the house as I reach our unit the other day. Since I do not want to feel so worthless while they are immaculately cleaning our lovely abode, I immediately scanned my mental to do list @ home for a task that I can easily do right then. These are my top priorities:

1. Organize my innumerable shoes and put them in their own boxes
2. Rearrange my wardrobe by colors
3. Categorize my books. Putting those that I have already read on the bookshelf placed on top of our bedroom door and stashing those that I have not read yet in the corner near our window.

I did "1" that day since I have been wanting to organize my shoes for ages then and have not got time to do so, which is most of the time my default excuse if I just want to bum around the house on weekends. Also, doing so would be very advantageous for me. Finding would not be that time-consuming anymore since it would be easier for me to find the shoes that I want to wear for a particular day if they were in their proper boxes, I would not have to bitch around, silently even, about not finding things that I want to find immediately and I would never ever have to feel sooo guilty for bitching afterwards. Triple advantage!

I do not have an ultra huge collection of shoes, by the way. I strongly believe that my collection is just a little bit lamangif compared to an average girl's shoe collection but I think my dad would totally disagree with what I just said. My dad is an Ilocano, and an overblown one to be exact. And for your information, Ilocanos are said to be naturally stingy. So, if you do ratio and proportion, my dad would be super stingy na no? Hahaha, kidding.

Well, he used to pester me with questions like "Ha? Why would you need another pair of shoes" or "Sira na ba yung iba?" or "Caterpillar ka ba?" and would always tell us stories of him just having two pairs of pants and shoes during his adolescence. I never actually caught the lesson behind his story. What should I do? Wait until the day that my toes would already be sticking out of my shoes?! Hahaha, kidding again. One time, my brother counter attacked his story by saying "Malas mo lang noon Pa mahirap tatay mo, e kami mayaman tatay namin". The bout was so funny that all of us just ended up laughing out loud. But seriosuly, with the tone of his voice, maybe he was also secretly asking himself why we, his desirous children, could not manage to have just two pairs of shoes like him, when in fact he had been perfectly fine with just those. Oo nga naman.

I can still remember how our conversation would progress at the mall if ever we would ask him to buy us something. Since we already know how our dad would react at this, One of us would first approach our mom holding the item that we want.

One of us: Ma, bilhan mo ako nito.
Mama: Huwag kayo sa akin magpabili, kay Papa niyo kayo magpabili! Ang hina-hina niyo!

This statement is accompanied by a glaring eyes that we had grown so afraid of. As I grew older, it dawned on to me that "the glaring eyes" was just my mom's tactic for us to learn how to approach our dad if ever we need something. Since we only get a few weeks to be with him in a year because of his work abroad and since we are very much accustomed to coming up to our mom if we have things that we need fixing, I think my mom just wanted us then to feel that we could also approach our dad if ever something comes up, if ever we have a problem or something like that.

Anyway, one of us would then approach our dad.

One of us: Papa, pabili nitong ______.
Papa: Ha? _______ na naman?

(Papa would always say this although it has already been ages ago since we last asked him to buy us something)

One of us: Sige naaaaa...
Papa: Pambihira.
One of us: *silence*

(We will look helplessly then to our mom.)

Papa: Pambihira. Tsk tsk. Pambihira

(He will smirk and will then look also at my mom and will eventually draw out money from his ever dependable belt bag while continuously muttering pambihira over and over again.)

I do not know how to be annoying and I do not want to be a brat, forcing my dad to buy me the stuff that I want that is why I would just resort to silence. Good thing, he would still buy me the stuff that I want even after so much deliberation, deep thinking and silent grumbling from his side. Maybe my mom had also glared at my dad that is why he would eventually and miraculously give in to our desires. Haha.

I have a very clear memory of these incidents because it had ALWAYS been like that. There came a point when I got sooo scared to ask him to buy me just about anything.

My dad is very much galante na these days. Yikee. His reason was that one of his children had already graduated from college.

I love my dad's minimalism. I am still in awe with this. I think his simplicity is what has been keeping us from spending way too much and what has been encouraging us to save and be financially aware. We had never been spoiled by our parents and I really thank them for doing so.