i remember it was also a cold night in december when i lost my first mobile phone. i was wearing a regular polo shirt and jeans then. still, i must have been overdressed for that dark, very crowded place along the highway where i got off from this provincial bus coming from a friend's place somewhere north of manila. i also recalled taking out my phone once or twice to check for messages in my inbox. it was enough to attract the attention of these shady characters that night who were out to victimize unsuspecting people like me. i was squiggling my way through this whole pack of people who were all trying to get on another bus when i felt an elbow pressing against my right side. seconds later, i found myself standing on the bus, breathing hard to calm myself. i just realized my pocket had been emptied and my nokia 3210 unit had been snatched. i remember staring at the faces of these guys who had a funny look on their faces. i was thinking they must have noticed something and knew even before they took their seats that i was in for a big surprise.
five years later, on another cold december night, i lost my second mobile phone. this time, there was nothing forced about the whole thing. my phone just decided to leave me for another owner. must have resented being neglected these past few days. it kept on complaining about the fake battery pack i bought to replace the busted one from the factory. mumbled this weird phrase -- "contact service" -- whenever i plugged it up or turned it on for the first time. sometimes it would have this catatonic look on its face. you'd then have to wrack your brains out dismantling it and trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. it even had some beige paint on it when it ran away the other night, fresh from my recent room renovation project. i was still trying to contact it yesterday, hoping to convince it to return. but to no avail. so now, i'm slowly pushing myself again to get pass through the denial stage of losing something.
my nokia 3310 and i had some good days together. i still remember those rainy saturday mornings when it woke me up for my masteral classes. and those hectic days in another country when, not having any roaming privileges, my mobile phone patiently showed what time it was back home, or helped me look busy whenever my tagalog-bred jaws grew tired of conversing in english. i recall those precious moments of composing catchy ring tones with my daughter (until the day she replaced her unit with one that played polyphonic tunes). guess i will miss my mobile phone badly in the coming days. a week before its unilateral decision, i was in fact trying to imagine a life without it. thought then that i could survive a cellphone-less existence in much the same way that i've been able to get on with a meatless diet these past five to six years. just wonder now how this would impact on the quality of my communication and my relationships with other people. it's terrifying, but exciting too.
though i really can't understand why of all the months in a year i have to lose my phone in december.
"A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised."
Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume
five years later, on another cold december night, i lost my second mobile phone. this time, there was nothing forced about the whole thing. my phone just decided to leave me for another owner. must have resented being neglected these past few days. it kept on complaining about the fake battery pack i bought to replace the busted one from the factory. mumbled this weird phrase -- "contact service" -- whenever i plugged it up or turned it on for the first time. sometimes it would have this catatonic look on its face. you'd then have to wrack your brains out dismantling it and trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. it even had some beige paint on it when it ran away the other night, fresh from my recent room renovation project. i was still trying to contact it yesterday, hoping to convince it to return. but to no avail. so now, i'm slowly pushing myself again to get pass through the denial stage of losing something.
my nokia 3310 and i had some good days together. i still remember those rainy saturday mornings when it woke me up for my masteral classes. and those hectic days in another country when, not having any roaming privileges, my mobile phone patiently showed what time it was back home, or helped me look busy whenever my tagalog-bred jaws grew tired of conversing in english. i recall those precious moments of composing catchy ring tones with my daughter (until the day she replaced her unit with one that played polyphonic tunes). guess i will miss my mobile phone badly in the coming days. a week before its unilateral decision, i was in fact trying to imagine a life without it. thought then that i could survive a cellphone-less existence in much the same way that i've been able to get on with a meatless diet these past five to six years. just wonder now how this would impact on the quality of my communication and my relationships with other people. it's terrifying, but exciting too.
though i really can't understand why of all the months in a year i have to lose my phone in december.
"A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised."
Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume
1 comment:
hi cecille:
terima kasih (thank you) for all the comments. they inspire me to keep on writing. s'ya nga pala, a very close friend would like to know what province here in the philippines does your father's relatives come from. she has relatives whose surnames are also "funelas".
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