color-coding, train rides and colds

Okey, it's the holidays, and I know I really don't have a decent excuse not to come up with something, so here goes. Just a quickie though.

So it's Friday. I was supposed to start my xmas break that day pero I wasn't able to pick up my xmas gift cheques the day before, thus I needed to drop by the office again.

The problem is, the car's coding on Fridays. So I decide to try something new and commute, after all, what’s a few train rides anyway? So I park the car at Metro East and made my way to Santolan LRT. Daming tao, but so far so good. I thought I had the commute thing easy again, but I didn’t reckon with the EDSA MRT yet.

I got off at Gateway and proceeded to Farmers. It wasn’t a holiday, emm, just a regular work day, and it was approaching noon already. But I was mildly surprised to see a mob of people in line. By that time, I was starting to regret not getting up early.

After an eternity at the pila. I realized that there was a number of working automated ticket dispensers off to the side of the station - for people with change to spare, e.g. people like me, kasi I always bring lots and lots of coins when I commute to save me the time and the effort from arguing with idiot drivers regarding the fare matrix and why it’s not ethical to withhold change ranging from 1 peso and below.

So what the heck, I’m just a few yards away from my turn anyway, so I sit tight. Crap, I burned an hour at that station though.

Finally getting into the platform, I brace myself for some good ole-fashioned tugging and pulling. I position myself gingerly, strategizing on how I could get myself into the train without sacrificing a limb. The train that arrived a few moments later was packed to the brim, so I simply went along with the flow of people and luckily found myself in front of the queue after.

Unfortunately, the next train was packed to the brim too. Now things get interesting (well, somewhat). I knew there would be another round of mob rule when the train doors open. I psyched myself up, thinking of a number of hirits I could dish up at the first guy who tries to shove me from behind.

I guess I should’ve come up with a million of them, kasi when the doors opened, it felt like everybody was pushing and tugging and shoving… it was madness. In the end I just went with the flow once more, letting the guy in front of me shove the guy in front of him, and letting the guy behind me shove me into the free space ahead. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but it really goes without saying: typical pinoy behavior.

I survived that train ride… twice. I had to take the same route on the way back (I’d rather get shoved than be hold-upped by unscrupulous cab drivers). It took me almost three hours of commute between Cainta and Makati, but it seemed longer like.

When I got back to Metro East I knew shopping was a foregone issue. Umuwi na lang ako because the stress and the pagod (I didn’t know how much of it was psychological) just made me ill, literally. Now I got myself a nice cold, and it looks like I’ll be spending the rest of the break indoors.

And those gift cheques I went to all that trouble to get to (they were Sodexho, btw)? I just gave them away na lang. Too much painful memories. ‘Nuff said.