LAYLAYAN

QUARANTINE: MGA KWENTONG NEGATIVE

OK, BOOMER

AKIN G. PONCE

I was fresh from my 9 to 5 internship on the pharmacy I’m working in; which happens to be owned by my dad, and to some extent my mom as well. My mom; or nanay as I call her, works as a Doctor (OB-GYN) and she just cleared her clinic schedule for the day and went to visit me on the last few minutes of my shift while waiting for my dad to pick us up. My dad ( I call him tatay) arrived soon after, and then soon enough, we drove off.

Both of my parents work long, tedious hours because of the nature of my mom’s job and my father, who works as an executive on the pharmacy gets dragged in as a part-time chauffeur of my mom because of her ineptitude behind the wheel. My parents, as you have figured out by now; are both frontliners against the COVID-19 pandemic.

While driving towards the hospital; my mother has the habit of scrolling down the phone while reading everything she sees out loud online and she shifts to a tone of anguish every time the pandemic is brought up. By the nature of her work, she is almost always out of touch with popular culture, along with my dad. As she was scrolling down further; she asked me a mundane, usually uneventful question:

“Nak, unsay pasabot anang DIY?”

“Do-it-yourself, ngano?” I answered.

It didn’t take long for me to realize the dismal implications of the question. Here’s why.

We love to say the phrase “ok, boomer” in disagreement to those who are old and out of touch; even towards Gen X-ers a generation below themselves. But what about these “boomers”? What about the middle-class-or-lower class boomers who work long days and nights for their families? What about these boomers who risk getting called idiots by the standards of popular culture just because of the endless stream of sick people who need their help? What about these boomers who don’t have televisions on their humble homes, haphazardly throwing themselves at risk because they don’t know that there’s a pandemic? What about them?

I’m fortunate enough to enjoy some of the luxuries in life because of my parent’s hard work. I’m lucky enough because I have no qualms with teaching them the ropes of the ebbs and flows of a changing world in the eyes of the current generation. I’m lucky enough because I have the patience to teach older people with opinions that we too have opinions of our own.

As we see it now, this often dismissive attitude and the pandemic’s penchant for older people is doubling down on their existential dread. And I personally hope we can see that.

Right now; as this pandemic worsens, I can only hope for the best that they could come home safe and alive. I could see that for these “boomers” and their families too.

Okay, boomer? Not quite.