Frienecdotes (Friend's Anecdotes)

Either my friends lead such interesting lives, or the circumstances surrounding the next three tales simply disrupted their otherwise mundane ones. For the first time(?), some names have been changed to protect the innocent-- namely, moi.

ONE: (Phone chat. Called Dee at her office for help arranging the Beijinoy Boracay trip.)
"Wow, you sound tired."
"Yeah, I might not come to work tomorrow."
"What happened? Are you sick?"
"No, I got robbed last night."
(Exit cheerful tone stage right.)

While Dee was getting gas at a Shell Station in Vito Cruz, the person approaching her from the driver's side of her Honda CRV was not an attendant about to hand her the bill, but a mugger. Because she struggled w/ the creep he wasn't able to get anything, but still ended up slashing Dee's arm a couple of times before escaping in his getaway tricycle.

What rankled me about this story was while Dee was busy trying not to bleed to death, or beforehand while the mugging was in progress, she said the Shell Station attendants were nowhere to be found. Instead she was assisted by attendants from a neighboring gas station. (Christ, Shell, is the Citibank 5% rebate thing hitting you guys so badly your gas stations have resorted to hiring apathetic f@#k-ups who stick the nozzle in the tank and go their merry way?) Dee reported the incident to police and got her arm stitched up, but unfortunately didn't get a good look at the guy.

Two nights later at a club Dee spent the evening telling the story to friends about 20 times, in response to them seeing her arm, and, amidst the loud music mouthing the words What happened to your arm, to w/c she gesticulated w/ her left hand stabbing her bandaged right. HI-larious.

TWO: Talking to Karen about her job, or to be precise she did most of the talking about her job while I drove. Background: She left her old bank job for a new one w/ better pay and position. But as the months passed that bank tightened their vault door and let some of the staff go, and she was presented w/ the choice of early retirement or demotion. She chose the latter and ended up w/ the same position she had at the old bank.

A year passes w/o incident, but come promotion time she was passed over for "lack of initiative," by someone younger and w/ less work experience than her. What "initiative" does one expect from someone demoted to Teller? Get new accounts? That's the Sales' job. Organize the office Xmas party w/o being asked to do so? Resist the urge to strangle young upstart higher-ups w/ delusions of false authority?

THREE: Aunt Teleute's job is purchasing fiction titles to be sold at the bookstore company where she works. Three years ago a foreign fiction titles consultant was brought in to work w/ her, a guy more than twice her age. While at first she resented the company seemingly not trusting her to do her job competently and thus inviting an ousider to evalute her, she later proved them wrong. Later on she even appreciated the presence of a actual fellow bibliophile (Who knew liking books and reading wasn't company policy?) and formed a paternal/ mentor-student relationship with him. They'd see each other at local literary events as colleagues and talked about books the way I'd talk to her about movies/TV.

You only think you know where this is going.

One afternoon on the road after attending a literary awards ceremony (where Old Guy joined the poetry category) Aunt Teleute was telling Old Guy (who was driving) about how she missed her voluntarily institutionalized boyfriend and her desire to become a writer. Amidst their passing by a motel district Old Guy seemed to construe her former statement as simply a case of someone missing sex and lacking experience in experimenting. This was followed by his hand lightly brushing her knee (w/c she used to dismiss as harmless geriatric reflexes) and then propositioning her.

Now, Aunt Telelute is not prone to flights of panic in stress-inducing situations (hell, she didn't even freak out when the salon she went to at Robinson's Galleria singed her beautiful black hair in a re-bonding process gone wrong), so she jokingly declined Old Guy's proposal, and he did similar and said he was just teasing her. (Testing the pervert waters, more like it.) Not to be given a second thought. Until last Saturday.

While they were at The Shang Mall waiting for some writers for a lunch meeting to shoot the shit with, Old Guy propositioned her again, much to her surprise and frustration. Sure, she liked him and grew up in the comfortable bond of old people (her dad's pushing 80-something), and mebbe if everything else was different (i.e. she's available while he's not twice her age) he'd have a shot of not being maced or tasered then and there.

But it's not, she thought. He's OLD. Really old. As in Married-with-kids-and-grandkids-old. So old Michael Douglas would look at their couplehood w/ disapproval. She again jokingly declined and told him that she won't wait w/ him for writers and instead do some window shopping. As she stood up to leave she jokingly apologized for being so desirable to him. On the inside Aunt Teleute pitied him and thought how disappointed she was at this pathetic old man, throwing away 3 years of friendship at the off-chance of getting casual May-December nookie.

While today Old Pervert doesn't come to Aunt Teleute's workplace as often as before, there's still the matter of the saucy text messages he's been sending her lately. Think of it as Smart Stalk 'N' Sext. Makes me long for the day when you can kick someone in the nuts via cellphone.