flossing my brain

i was flossing while in a public restroom yesterday. practicing oral hygiene in a rural mall is not necessarily the most exciting thing to do while waiting for one's bus to leave for the city, but one makes do with what one has. being a compulsive flosser and just having finished a lunch comprising of local delicacies such as bopis, sisig, kinunot na marlin, lechon paksiw and ginataang ube, you could only imagine the terrible itch i had that just needed scratching! though i really don't floss in public, i realized it would be a long while before i could find myself onto a decent sink, my site of choice for doing my deed. cleaning up in the public restroom would mean the difference between relief and HOURS of sucking and going psycho over that itty-bitty piece of meat poking out in between ur teeth. so floss i did! never mind every person who came in and looked at me strangely as if i was this lost bum taking advantage of a free washroom (by this time i was rather haggard looking. hair disheveled, clothes dusty, and skin burnt to a crisp). anyways, after 4 days of being in the province, i should be already used to getting stares and the once-over from locals for looking foreign. a few more stares wouldn't kill me... but the plaque probably will! hehehehe...

ANYWAY!!!!.....

while threading the darn piece of nylon in between my cuspid and bicuspid, i suddenly got a call on my mobile from an unknown number. upon answering and hearing the voice on the other end, the way she said "jay-mee!", i knew already who i was speaking to and a stupid smile crawled up my tired face.

high pitched but forever tender to my ears, hearing vikki's voice from far Antalya was like dew in the morning, familiar and always refreshing. she called to make her kamustas and hear my voice as well as guess. it embarrasses me actually that i don't reciprocate and call her, even write her as much as i would like. maintaining connections has always been a problem of mine, probably the reason why i have so few friends. though it pleased me greatly to hear her again after a long time of no communication between us, my spirits was quickly dampened by the news that she brought, the reason she called in the first place. we have a friend, he was part of our batch who was hired and got sent to dubai. due to his absconding from another company and being buried in debt, he was jailed for 4 months in the dubai prison. before i left dubai for good more than a year ago, he had brought his wife and children to dubai to be with him. how he managed to support his family with his meager wage was a mystery to me. needless to say, i was not surprised at all to hear him being buried in debt. it was however unfortunate that he had to get imprisoned because of it. i am glad to know though that he and his family are now safely back home. disgraceful though, their exit, at least in the end, they are home, safe and complete as a family.

i have plenty of thoughts about this friend of mine. plenty of opinions about how and what he could have done, but that doesn't really matter now. vikki felt bad. i guess she felt sorry for them., more so, she could empathize with the family and waiting that long, not knowing what will happen. i on the other hand feel indifferent. i reasoned that he was old enough to know what and what not to do. he took the risk and knew full well what the consequences were. what was only sad here was him underestimating the gravity of his actions and him getting caught. but again, in the end, what is most important is that he and his family are home and together.

(sigh) dubai....

from flossing to this.... now wasn't that quite the leap?