Reyna ng Sablay (The Queen of Fail)
At seven this evening I decided to leave the office so I could go home and get changed. (I arrived at work around ten... the previous evening. But that's another story.) It took me nearly an hour to get a cab because every joe out there, plus seventy of their kith and kin, has designated tonight a shopping night in celebration of the Labor Day weekend. And apparently, I'm the only one who didn't see the memo.
Tonight I concede that seven in the evening is way too early to be walking Makati Avenue. The street is one long parading ground for drunk or stoned ex-pats, thugs, pimps, prostitutes, or worse. You really get the feeling that you don't belong there. Sad to say, no air of danger unnerved me, but the sense of being an alien, of other-ness, did.
But then again, maybe that's just my paranoia talking. Not all thugs look thuggish, and it's not like prostitution's a communicable disease or a communicable anything. I might just need to get out more, see the seamier side of life. You tell me.
And anyhow, I did find a conscientious, elderly cab driver who had hung around outside a bank because, he told me, he was headed the same way I was but thought it was a waste of gasoline to drive there by himself.