A Night at Hotshots

I love Southerners. Walking around like they just stepped out their front door. Board shorts, crag pants, flip flops. Looking for burgers at 2 in the morning.

This is really almost amusing. Here I am at Hotshots above Petron in the dead of night, and all these people are waltzing in like it was normal to crave some nice, indigestible red meat in the wee hours. Most of them are wearing slippers and 3/4 pants. The number of people with friendship ankle bracelets is astounding, as if a whole bangka-load of people just washed ashore from Mindoro.

Some choose to have beer with their burger, courtesy of Treats downstairs. Some are just here to buy thick fries still with their skins, and they walk out clutching their brown paper bags. Some come to wind down after a long day, some come straight from home to honor a craving (so Harold and Kummar), some come before they head in for their graveyard shift.

They talk about work, occasionally. But mostly they talk about friends and family, anticipated basketball games, new restaurants and bars, drugs, food, and drink. The guy at the next table (yes, I'm eavesdropping) is telling a story about how his sister left a bag of money on the steps of some church after a wedding and how he had to go back from the Intercon and pick it up somewhere in Greenhills (I eavesdrop very well, complete with details). At another table, this girl is telling yet another Boracay story (and bless her, she says "Boracay", not "Bora". Someone like me seems to have chosen this rather unorthodox place to study, in lieu of the usual café.

And here I am with my sketchpad and my tray with my demolished burger (it wasn't that hard, I had a junior). What a great night. I feel so at home. I love this place.

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