It Can Only Get Better.



1. I mislaid my phone for two hours and spent three hours looking for it. It's a jurassic Nokia 3310 (or something) and I'm not too worried about losing the phone per se. I'm one of the few who like to be disconnected sometimes. Often it takes me two days to reply to my own mother's text message. Yet, I need my contact list. (I should really make a safe copy.) It's got numbers of all my dope and arms dealers, my lawyers in 20 countries (to bail me out in case I get arrested, which is quite often), my fortune teller, the escort service agency, my ground spies in MalacaƱang who keep me updated, disgusted, and amused at the shenanigans they do in that palace of malevolence. (Is Gloria Arroyo still throwing cellphones at her staff when she loses her temper?)

When I finally found it, it was in the most public of all places. What a relief! I then took a moment of silence to say a little prayer to Bathala, thanking him/her that I am the only Filipino within a one-mile radius otherwise I'd have to go to Quaipo to buy back my own phone. Hay Salamat!

2. I won't rant about the continous rain Middle Earth has been having. I grew up in Baguio where it rains 400 days a year.

3. My visa expired yesterday.

4. Please spare me the loooooong details of your so-called sale 'shopping' trip to Gap! Buying mass-produced disposable clothes is about as exciting as buying skimmed milk from the grocery. There's nothing wrong with it but really it's nothing to crow about. Should I care that you bought a blue polo shirt that a hundred other unique individuals also chose from those racks and racks of clothes whose cotton was picked by underpaid, overworked, and maltreated children in Western China before being transported to Southeastern China to be sewn by underpaid, overworked, and maltreated children?

Knowing the ridiculous profit margins they make, you shouldn't even be buying Gap at full price anyway. At 'rock bottom' sale prices, they're still making money. I only go to Gap when everything's 95% discounted which reflects the real value of those items. (Which still provides more than enough to double the wages of those underpaid, overworked, and maltreated child labourers.) I go in and out discreetly. (Yes it's that shameful an experience.) 10 minutes tops.

Gap doesn't even serve you a complimentary glass of Chateau Margaux while you wait as the minimum-wager attendant packs your purchase in an oversized bag made of trees harvested from a third world rainforest. How can that be a 'shopping' experience.