Sticky Fingers

May 6th. Friday. Yet another one of my Murphy's Law days.

Left the condo at 10am for my 1235pm flight to Cagayan de Oro. Under normal circumstances, this would have been more time, but since I had to pass by the office to pick up the multimedia projector and the presentation laptop, and not to mention the snail-paced traffic at Pasay Road, I knew I was going to be late. And all that because I dimwittedly set my alarm to 7pm. How smart is that.

Upon reaching the office, I realized I left a whole lot of my personal stuff in the condo, my PalmPilot being at the top of the list of my foremost gadgets not to be forgotten!!!! Argh.

Cab ride was uneventful...save for the ocasional April Boy, Aegis, or Masculados songs blaring from the car FM radio...and with matching sing-along of the cab driver. Great way to start the day: an ample helping of Lagot ka, lagot ka, huling huli ka...lalalalala. Awww. Schmuck.

After doing my impression of a Lydia De Vega cum Elma Muros meter dash to make it to the check-in counter, I found out that the 1235pm was moved to 140pm. Excellent. You would think it was a "blessing in the sky" (yet another one of those private jokes, which I know you know already)...but nooooooooooo. Somebody was going to be waiting for me at Cagayan de Oro to fetch me, and then go someplace else for work and some leisure. With this sudden change of schedules, my entire itinerary has gone dominoing into doomsday.

One club-sandwich with no free chips as shown in the poster (talk about false advertising), and a bottle of mineral water later, I headed for the men's room. Placed my overnighter bag and laptop bag on the lavatory, placed my mobile phone on top of the overnighter, washed my hands, washed my face, stepped three frickin' steps to the hand towel dispenser for less than 7 seconds, came back to the sink, and my mobile phone went missing in action. Seven frickin seconds, man. Seven. Seconds.

When I asked the cleaner, not even two minutes after the incident happened, all I got was a flat, "I didn't see it, Sir"...followed by an almost panicked, "Sir, don't report them that it's me. I didn't take it. Baka you'd tell them I was the one that took it." Talk about defensive.

Delayed flight and wobbly knees later, I approached the ground staff to perhaps page it (hoping against hope that it would resurface). After seeing a pensive look at the ground staff after I left him my business cards, just in case it resurfaced (even if that page never happened, up to that point when I had to board the plane already), I resigned myself to the fact that it's gone for good. My poor self, left with no Nokia 6230 and its 256MB memory card...packed with goodies (stuff I won't even dare mention here, lest make you cringe).

*sigh*. *sniff* and more *sigh*

Now, staring at my now-empty (save for the manuals, installation CD and headset) Nokia 6230 box, I asked myself, "why stress over it? Anything you can buy, you can replace." A Chinese friend of mine once told me (while we were in bed, hehehehehe) that I am a Cancerian, a crab, and so I bring with me my home. Those that I leave behind or that I lose, they do not belong in my home...and I should move on and make a home anew.

So now, I have a brand spanking new 6230 (less the 256MB memory card *sniff*). Talk about steadfastness and fear of change. I have yet to get "UNused" to the phone before I could move on. So spare me the lecture.

And, oh, is it so bad to curse the thief who took my phone to be inflicted with something like water faucet-like speed diarrhea 24/7?