The Marriage Proposal

"Will you marry me, my sweet sexy darling housewife"

Over the phone and the biggest joke in my life, it was also the first marriage proposal I received. I was turning 18.

Taken by surprise (huh??? No courtship? No engagements???) I asked "What?!"

And he repeated it...""Will you marry me, my sweet sexy darling housewife?"

Okay, first, I'll explain where sweet sexy darling housewife came from.

Sweet. He thought I was sweet. Over the phone, my voice is at its best. I can be sweet if I want to. And I definitely did want to.

Sexy. Well, what can I say. I am still called this up to this day.

Darling. My dad's pet name for me. He managed to hear it when he called and my mom answered the phone. My mom called me..."Darling, phone!" (PS: My dad's pet names for us - Mahal (Dear) for my Mom; Sweetheart for Ate; Love for Rodgie)

Housewife. He called me up one time while I was doing the laundry, and another time, when I was ironing clothes (Alila talaga noh?- The maid takes a month-long vacation during fiesta month and I get stuck with some of the chores). He said I'm the perfect housewife.

So there. Sweet, sexy, darling housewife. He'd been calling me his darling housewife for sometime. He shoul have thrown in another "Gorgeous" somewhere there, plus a diamond ring and I'd have no second thoughts.

But I replied "I can't" When he asked why, I told him because we were still too young.

I had never been as confused about things as I was at that moment. I knew he had been kidding, because he had to be...But my heart then wasn't at all ready for play.

The silence, the gap, loomed larger after that. He was having problems in school and was in danger of being kicked-out (the honest word for Not To Be Re-admitted). My lovelife had broadened to include a funny Chinese classmate and my older sister's friends.

The questions I should have asked then are stuck in a diary that I lost over time. And I guess, there will never be any answers at all. Regrets are best taken with a spoonful of memories.

Memories

My psyche was so well attuned to his frequency that when the phone rings, or sometimes, even before it does, I'd know it was him.

If he was put-off by me or our aloofness during classes, he did not show it.

He'd once asked me to watch a cartoon movie with him...at National Bookstore, Quezon Avenue. He said he'd drive by and pick me up and offered to buy me McDo apple pie.

He'd pretend to be a Jamaican/Raggae rapper/DJ anything funny. He'd tell old, corny Indian jokes (May isang Indian nagbebenta ng banig...)

He once briefly held my hand while we were watching basketball in one of the old gyms in Quiapo.

After a gimik at a mall to celebrate his and Miss Piggy's birthday, he told a friend of ours to tell me that my fly was open. I was positive I'd die of embarrassment. Later, over the phone, I thanked him. To make me feel better, he told me that it has happened to him also...and it was a female who pointed it out to him.