Man of No Fortune

 

Our priest had a birthday and had several celebrations by various groups of parishioners leading up to it but nothing on his actual birthday including the Filipino community. Being fairly close to the priest as friends along with him being our spiritual leader, we invited to take him and his assistant priest out to eat. He accepted and chose a local Chinese buffet place that we don't frequent. In fact, I had never been there in all thirteen years we have lived in this town but I know it does good business as the parking lot is always packed whenever I drive by. But I digress.

He had obligations so couldn't get there until close to seven in the evening. I had obligations and couldn't get there until twenty minutes later so my wife met him there and after I finished up, I drove there. I was surprised to see maybe 20 others that I knew, all belonging to the Filipino community also there celebrating Father's birthday, most of them having just celebrated Father's birthday four days prior.

Although it was supposed to be just my family and Father, I was okay with others joining in and indeed a good time was had... at least until I opened up my fortune cookie above. It had only a blank piece of paper with a blue mark in the corner. I assume that it was the end of a roll or some such explanation but I received no fortune. I'm not sure if that is good or bad luck. I tend to think bad luck after what happened next.

As we were leaving, I went and paid for six buffet meals, four for my family, one for the priest and one for the assistant priest. I was standing by the door after paying talking to both Fathers and I had more than one Filipino greet me and thank me for their dinner. The comments struck me as odd but I was in the middle of a conversation and thought there had just been something lost in the translation either by them or myself. To make matters more confusing, my MIL handed me a $20 bill and said it was from someone whose name I didn't recognize and it was for the tip. I had already paid and left a generous tip so I just pocketed the money.

As the minutes passed, I started noticed a bit of chaos going on near the cash register and the Filipinos were talking animatedly in their native tongue. Eventually I saw some of them paying for meals and by the time I walked out, I had heard the cashier say that all meals had been paid for. As I was in our bedroom getting ready for bed, I heard my wife and MIL talking about something in Tagalog in the kitchen. Eventually my wife came in visibly upset and I learned the "rest of the story".

In my wife's culture, it is customary that when someone invites others to a birthday celebration at a restaurant, the invitee pays for everyone's meals. My MIL had told all the other Filipinos there that I would thus be buying their meals. Neither my wife or I knew this and didn't know until we got home afterwards. I told my wife that at least in my family, I would have paid for meals to all whom I invited to go out to eat at a restaurant with me but I did not invite them, only the priests. Someone, most likely my MIL had invited them but again, my wife and I had no knowledge of it until afterwards. I was informed that not having paid for the invitees, I had put my MIL and perhaps us in a bad light with the Filipino community.

Filipinos can be very serious about social slights and I have seen groups divide overnight by some perceived slight or another between two people. People are made to take sides and the splits tend to be permanent. My wife and I always take the side of being neutral and refuse to take sides and we have thus far avoided these social splits. But this time, I was inadvertently the cause of the social slight. 

I finally decided to write an apology to one of the more socially vocal ones whom we are fairly close to and explained the situation, that I hadn't been aware that others had been invited, by whom, and that they had been informed that I would be paying for their meals. My hope is that person will sort of pass the word through the "coconut telegraph" as I refer to it and all will be forgiven. She was very understanding so I guess we'll see in the future if suddenly we are no longer invited to events we normally get invited too.

If only I had gotten a fortune in my cookie, perhaps this whole thing could have been avoided!