If you are one with a short fuse, in a hurry, or are maintaining your daily pill for hypertension, never think about hailing a taxicab these days. This is the season of busy taxis and of snobbish taxi drivers. This is the season of people in shopping frenzy that they take more cab rides than usual.
As I submitted to the reality that my car will be spending Christmas with the mechanic, I braced for the hard ride this season.
I decided to take a jeepney to my favourite coffee shop Tuesday morning after waiting fruitlessly for almost half an hour for a vacant cab. What is dreading with the long jeepney rides for this impatient fast-living colloid turned out to be a comic relief worth a silent chuckle.
An elderly woman in her sixties wearing extra large red bubuyog shades and her fair-skinned friend stepped up the jeep and took the seat in front of me. The woman with the red shades recognized another passenger and they started conversing.
“Have you seen (name of a person) lately?,” I heard the man ask the fab-looking woman in vernacular.
The woman with the red shades answered: “Wala.” Then she gestured by trickling her fingers. “Onli tro fisbok.”
I could not help but take another look at the hip grandma.
Christmas red shades. Legging pants. And a facebook account of her own.
My, oh my. This woman is cool.
Like this woman, I also thought it cool for my mom, all of 78 years, to have a facebook account of her own too. But she wanted something else. A camera-phone for Christmas is what she is asking.
Lately, her cellular phone which I bought some five years ago, finally sucked its own life out of this maddening world of social networking. I used to dread the endless thread of text messages she sends me. Now, all of a sudden with her CP conking out, I am beginning to miss those bugging text messages.
There are things in this world we dread at one time and miss at another. Like jeepney rides. I dread taking the jeepney rides which make you feel like a squeezed lemon after getting off. Then again, I miss the jeepney rides too and dread all the waiting for taxicabs. In a taxicab, either you end up with a friendly cabbie or an irky one. But in a jeepney ride, you don’t mind the driver unless he’s scrappy behind the wheel. You enjoy the ride with strangers. It separates you from your own world. It takes you for a few minutes away from your cares. You realize that life ain’t too bad at all.
A Thai priest shared the homily at one misa de gallo I attended. The gospel talked about the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. Presence, Mary’s presence, more than anything else, brought happiness to the infanticipating Elizabeth. The essence of the Visitation is the message that one’s presence is worthier than any gift. This took me back to the bugging messages of my mom when she still had a CP. I dread it like a broken record. But when I do not receive her messages anymore, I felt like my day is not complete. Those messages, no matter how irritating it may get, is her presence no matter the distance. Much like the Christmas-inspired red shades of that cool facebooking granma.
Whatever ride took us through the year, whether on flashy cars or the jeepney and taxicab rides, it’s time to ask the question to ourselves too: “Did you talk to Jesus lately?”
Would you say “yes.”
Or will you say “onli tro fisbok.”
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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