50 Things I will discover once I marry my Filipina bride!

1. My refrigerator will always be full but I will not be able to find any food that I recognize.

2. Most of the decorations in our house will be made of wicker.

3. I will be expected to read her mind just by watching her eyebrows move up and down and which way her lips are pointed. 

4. The instant I am married I will have 3000 new close relatives that I can't tell apart.

5. Our house won't really be on fire, but there is a very charred fish right on top of the stove burner. 

6. All the desserts will be sticky and all the snacks are salty.

7. She will eat her fruit with giant salt crystals and her fried chicken with ketchup.

8. Even the ketchup tastes weird... very weird.

9. When I throw a party everyone will be fighting to chop the leathery skin off a dead pig.

10. All of our kids will have 4-5 middle names.

11. It will take my in-laws 10 years to acknowledge my existence and to call me by something other than "that white guy".

12. My first Christmas present will be some funny looking baggy see-thru shirt made out of leftover lace doilies.

13. Our phone bills will consist mainly of international calls and average 3 hours per call.

14. She sweeps with something that witches usually fly around on.

15. The rice cooker is on 24 hours a day and uses up 50% of our electric and food budget.

16. On our first trip to the Philippines, I will have 18 giant boxes that weigh 1000 pounds each and my "carry on" luggage will require a small forklift truck.

17. The same luggage is over filled with things that cost an average of 15 cents each like old magazines and M&Ms -- the worst part is when I get off the plane, the same stuff I've been hauling around half way around the world is available in every store in the airport for half the price!

18. All her pajamas will look like they were worn by the Dalai Lama until they got too faded.

19. The first time she's pregnant I will have to go out at 4:00 in the morning looking for some weird type of greasy sausages, green mangoes and bagoong.

20. I will need to buy a new $500 freezer so she can store 200 pounds of SPAM and CORNED BEEF that was on sale.

21. Everything in our house was bought on sale, even if we don't need it .. as long as it was a "bargain" is all that matters.

22. She gets really excited by sucking the fat out of pig knees.

23. Our daughter will get her ears pierced when she's 2 minutes old but our sons will not be circumcised until they turn 21.

24. All our postage bills will instantly double.

25. I hire a yaya because my wife thinks I clean mirrors with soap and a sponge and the yaya seems cheaper than a divorce.

26. The only "white meat" she likes is ME, and that's if I'm lucky...

27. Her favorite sauce is called patis, I will still insist on calling it it turpentine.

28. I will be married 5 years before she explains to me that "ARAY!" doesn't mean "ooh, baby!"

29. She prefers bistek to beef steak.

30. Her idea of new upholstery is rinsing the bagoong stains out of the slip covers.

31. Her favorite meal is leftovers, her favorite fancy dessert is Jell-O mold and for something REALLY romantic, she'll offer me a halo-halo with 2 straws.

32. I still won't know what's the difference between manong and manok.

33. She and the kids are always saying "Daddy made utot" and I still don't know what it means but they think it's pretty funny.

34. Other than eyebrow raising and lip puckering, her next most expressive form of communication is grunts and pssst's

35. She will want to go to the movies just for the AC.

36. Before every holiday and visit, her sisters fax me a 10 page "bilin" list which says "suggestion only".

37. Our kitchen table will have a merry-go-round in the middle.

38. All the vegetables she buys at the Filipino store look like they were grown at Chernobyl.

39. My in-law's first visit lasted 5 years.

40. Her home economics course only taught shopping, eating and siesta; cooking, cleaning and sewing were not electives.

41. Her idea of edifying reading is gossip magazines.

42. All our place settings has the silverware backwards and there are no knives.

43. She washes her hair with a bucket and her car with a broom.

44. Her favorite book (she has 3 copies) is "1001 New Recipes for Pig Parts You Were Gonna Throw Out"

45. We are the only family in a 200 mile radius with 2 VCRs, 3 televisions.

46. She's done her best job planning a surprise party for me if she manages not to tell me about it until a week or two before.

47. She "cleans" her closet by throwing all the crap into my closet.

48. Everything on the house is "Name brand".

49. Garages are designed to hold Shoe's, vehicles are secondary.

50. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST: I will be pretty proud of myself because I thought I snagged up for myself some unique, rare, tropical goddess type until I go to the Philippines and can't tell her apart from anyone else in the whole country.