It happens even to corporate emo-martyrs like myself: you wake up at 6:30 AM even if work starts at 7:00 AM. I accidentally lay atop my phone (which doubles as my alarm clock), and sort of slept through alarm cycles. While I could have taken a sick leave and worried about conversions later, I decided to take a quick bath, take the late, and just chalk this all up to an “it-happens-to-the-best-of-us” scenario.
I walked to the jeepney terminal with all the despair of that lead singer from Bullet For My Valentine (I told you, I’m a corporate emo-martyr) when an idea hit me: this is a perfect time to test my friend Erik’s theory that I can “save five minutes” if I took a cab from my place to Ortigas via C5… Katipunan… White Plains… Corinthian Gardens… Temple Drive… whatever.
Like every cheapskate worker who is kind of on the lower end of the pay scale but not exactly part of the working-class poor (if I said I was “proletarian” people will shoot me), I was very hesitant to pay for the taxi ride. With the threat of deductions bearing down on me like Manny Villar’s anti-porn bill, I just took the taxi and prepared for every nightmare I heard about Metro Manila taxis: batingting, overcharging taxi drivers, drivers who don’t know where they’re going, and saying goodbye to my hard-earned money.
One hundred pesos and fifteen minutes later, I was happily at work, not late, and my hair’s still wet and smelling like Head and Shoulders Menthol.
I’m one lucky sonovabitch.
