Anger Leads To Stress, Stress Leads To Poverty

Vexed, stressed, harassed. That was me from 11:30pm last night to around 9am this morning, broken only by a dreamless 3-hour sleep from 2 to 5am.

Long story short: Orlando (my beloved SUV) wouldn’t start. This I found out when I was about to leave Migs’ place after we recorded our latest Fabcast (up soon, pramis!); Tony and Gibbs had already left, and Migs had retired already. After failed attempts with my brother (who drove all the way from Marikina) to jump-start and push-start Orlando, we had to leave him overnight and come back early the next morning so that we can have Orlando towed to the shop. All that hassle—argh!

So when I arrived at our office building past noon, I was not at my chirpy-cheep-cheepest. Worse, last night I could already feel a bad cold coming; a major phlegm clog-up had lodged inside my throat, and I kept coughing. Whenever I know I’d be coming down with a terrible cough, I immediately try to drown it with lots of water. As in, liters and liters of water; I’d be peeing every 30 minutes.

So I dropped by the convenience store in our building and went straight for the bottled water section. I looked for the biggest bottle size I could find. There were only a few left at the lowest shelf, and at that angle I couldn’t see the brand. But at that time I wasn’t paying much attention anyway; I just wanted to get my water, pick up some apples, and punch in late at the office. So I grabbed one bottle and made a beeline for the counter.

The line I chose had a slow-moving cashier. It’s as if he had all the time in the world and was imposing his timeline on everyone else. So when I got to the counter I plopped the bottle and two packs of pre-sliced apples and stared at the cashier, screaming at him in my head, “Get with it, Slo-Mo Man!” He wasn’t looking at me; instead he was staring at the bottle I had. He then aimed the infrared gun at the barcode and I saw the price blip! on the screen. Then the cashier had the temerity to say out loud—it sounded like he was shouted out loud actually, for every one to hear—the price and the purchase: “190 pesos, Evian!”

Hu-whaaat?!

And that’s when I looked closely at the 1.5 liter clear bottle the cashier was holding. Holee shite! It was Evian! Jeez.

So now I’m displaying my choice of water around the office. And I’m going to make sure the inside of that bottle is licked dry so that I get all my money’s worth.