You're an hour late and there's still nobody there! There’s enough food to feed the Philippines.
You can't even get through the door because there's a pile of 50 shoes blocking the way.
You see a huge fork and spoon on the wall, a framed picture of the Last Supper, a huge Santo Nino,and a barrel man.
They're singing "Peelings" on karaoke.
There's a piano in the living room for decoration.
You are greeted by a Tita Baby and/or a Tito Boy.
The older men are in the garage playing posoy-dos, or poker or 31, the women are in the kitchen gossiping, or are playing mahjong,the other people are in the entertainment room singing karaoke, and the kids are outside the streets running around unsupervised.
There's goat 'pulutan' beeing cooked.
There's a crazy woman with a camera going around the room snapping away and yelling, "Uy peeeek-chuuur!"
You enter a family party and you "Mano" to half the old crowd and when you leave you have to say goodbye to EVERYONE that's related to you as a sign of respect. You end up saying hello and goodbye for a total of 30-40 minutes.
You know you're at a Filipino party when you hear a male's voice on the karaoke trying to emulate Frank Sinatra's "My Way."
Women are still doing the line dance to "todo todo".
When there's at least one or more with the name : JP,JJ, JT,TJ,DJ,AJ, RJ,LJ, Lingling, Bingbing, Tingting, Dingding, Wengweng, Bongbong, Dongdong etc.
All the old aunties and guests are already wrapping up food to take home.
You have the Pacquiao fight on the illegal cable boxes on the 70" LCD in the movie room,
The 10 yr old 50" CRT in the living room,
The 15 yr old 30" tube in the breakfast nook,
The 20 yr old 15" tube in the kitchen,
The 30 yr old 13" tube in the garage
And the little portable by the BBQ grill,Because TVs are NEVER retired in a Filipino household, they merely get demoted to whichever room doesn't have a TV yet(hahaha),then it ends up in the balikbayan box to be sent to a relative back home, and it ends up being the main TV at the house again.
The aunties and guests are showing off their "designer" Louis Vuitton and Coach bags that they secretly bought at a swap-meet . .
Someone is always in the kitchen constantly cleaning up, and you're not sure if she's the maid or a relative, so you greet and kiss them on the cheek anyway.
Relatives/friends will ask you where you work and if it's a retail job or if you work at an amusement park, they'll ask if you can get them a discount.
The lumpia is gone in 5 minutes and they are frying up another batch.
They play achy-breaky heart over and over again.
I like how the religious gatherings at the house turn into an illegal gambling set up by the end of the night !!
