Goddess, I Am.

When we joined the IT Park Christmas Nights bazaar a month ago, the experience was nothing short of stellar. Everyone was so nice, from the customers to the organizers to the exhibitors. We got along well with our neighbors, helped each other out regularly, and even gave each other discounts. We had fun and found the whole bazaar thing such a great experience that we didn’t think twice about joining this month’s Sinulog bazaar.

The second time, however, is definitely not a charm. Sales are a bit low because people are too engrossed with the Sinulog revelry to think about shopping. We’ve had really bad weather practically all week, so the exhibition area has been constantly wet and muddy, and we even had to close 3 hours early on Friday night because the rain pummeled the tents quite badly. Worst of all, we somehow ended up with the next-door neighbors from hell (or at least, from China).

Since day one, they’ve done nothing but complain. First, it was our flooring; they claimed it went through our side of the wall to theirs (it didn’t). Days later, it was the life-sized tarp of my best friend, Aileen, who happens to be Innuendo‘s image model. They claimed that it was blocking their display when it was definitely within our boundaries (even the organizers agreed with us).

They kept at it for days, attacking my poor cousin who was manning the booth incessantly and even kicking the tarp stand! The way they were carrying on, you’d think they were selling awesome stuff like ipods or eggcups, but no, they were hawking cheap silver jewelry.

But I digress. It all came to a head last night when The Husband confronted them about it. When he asked them what their problem was, they started yelling and gesticulating madly in broken English. Then one of them started pulling on our tarp, and almost tore it off! I then told him off, and he advanced towards me like he was going to hit me. So The Husband yelled at him and told him that if he does that again, he (The Husband) was going to tread on his head. I pulled him away, told him to calm down, and he turned his back on them because I told him to just walk away.

Next thing I knew, said Chinaman grabbed one of those plastic Monobloc stools and hit The Husband on the head. The Husband grabbed him in a headlock while the other Chinaman joined the fray. By this time, the whole force of the brawl propelled all 3 men, like, 50 feet away from where it started – all within 10 seconds or less.

Now, these Chinamen are both rather short and scrawny, so The Husband handled them fairly easily. I was half-expecting them start going all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on The Husband, but really, the whole brawl just looked a bit like a couple of tiny hyenas trying to fight a tiger.

It was over as quickly as it started. Guys from the other stalls and some customers broke up the fight. The organizers came over and tried to sort things out. Naturally, two rather different versions of the story were heard from our side and from theirs (and their 2 skanky girlfriends/wives). They were going to be moved to another stall, but unfortunately, none of the other exhibitors were keen on moving, so we’re going to have to live with them for another week.

The Husband ended up with a couple of bumps on his head that are now thankfully gone and a banged up knuckle where he hit one of ‘em Chinamen’s teeth (said Chinaman was seen inspecting a loose tooth later). We called the cops, but they wouldn’t come after the fact, believe it or not. We were going to go in and file a complaint with the police, anyway, but the organizers begged us not to, saying it was going to give the bazaar bad publicity, blah blah blah. By this time, we were all exhausted, so we decided to just settle for an apology.

If one good thing came out of this whole mess, it’s that the organizer has told them that we can display the tarp all we want, as long as it’s not beyond 20 inches of our wall, so I daresay that we won’t be hearing any more crap from them within the next few days. Funnily enough, we haven’t even used those 20 inches because we were actually being considerate about their display, but because of this incident, we’re definitely going to use all our 20 inches now. Ahhh, the stupidity of the human race.

Still, I wish none of these ever happened. I hate it when The Husband fights. Why can’t men just talk? The excess of manliness is way too much for my sensibilities.