The middle seat in the back row of a car is informally called “the bitch seat” for a reason. The British call it the pillion, though it’s used more to refer to the second seat of a horse saddle, bicycle, or motorcycle. It’s a less vulgar, more sophisticated way of describing a most uncomfortable spot. And it was on our family road trip to the border of Bukidnon and Davao (BU-DA) that I discovered just how unforgiving riding pillion or riding bitch was. It’ll be worth it, my aunt said. It’s cold and isolated there. You’ll love it.
The entire drive took about seven hours, including a two-hour stopover for lunch. The bitch seat, as I’ve previously mentioned, is the seat with no headrest; the seat where you have to sit with your knees apart because of the awkward hump in the middle of the chair; the one where your butt gets unceremoniously poked by the seat belt buckle even after you’ve wedged it in between the cushions. I never sat on the bitch seat. Ever. But when you’re in the same row as your mom and aunt, it’s only polite to offer yourself as tribute. So for the duration of our drive I sat with my knees apart, buckle against my butt, and my neck hanging off to one side or another when I dozed off. This “Baguio of the South” better be worth it, I thought. We left my aunt’s house at 10 in the morning and stopped at Pine Hills Hotel about an hour and a half later for lunch. This small establishment is owned by a retired couple who often travel out of the country to visit their children. The wife owns a small boutique, where she sells different things she brings home from her travels. My aunt and uncle had travelled that way often enough that the owners already knew who they were, so our purchases at her boutique were given a “friendly discount.” There wasn’t much to see in their area, but I reckoned it was the kind of place people would travel to just to get away for a day or two.
0 Comments
|
best handled with a glass of wine
Archives
January 2018
Categories |