God DAMN!

In a week, I will look back at this and snicker.  In a week, I will look back at this and it will not be a big deal.  It will all be okay.  I will look back at this and it will not be a big deal.  In a week. 

Antos.

I'm back in Manila, supposedly for three days to kiss this country goodbye before heading off to Cambodia.  I take a taxi to Mall of Asia to re-stock some clothes.  I forgot to pick up my laundry in Palawan.  No biggie - it's a couple of shirts and a pair of underwear.  After five weeks in the same three shirts, I'm grateful at the prospect of new attire (alas, that Punahou sleeveless that I seem to be wearing in every photo is still with me).  In the taxi, I lightly chastise myself on principle for forgetting the laundry - Come on, Ed.  Pull it together.  You know that transition moments are when costly mistakes are made.  Keep your wits about you.  Check and double check!

It was meant as a reminder, not as foreshadow.   

At the mall,  I get out of the taxi and pay the cabbie.  My wallet is in my right hand.  The taxi drives off as I realize that my mobile phone is sitting on the back seat.  I yell and sprint after the driver.  Its confusing; there are about 20 taxis ahead of me.  I'm not sure which overturned cup holds the magician's coin.  I'm hauling ass - my sprinting form is strong, my manpurse trails behind me like a cape, people stare as I fly by.  I'm shouting to security guards ahead to stop the taxi but they are painfully inept.

My wallet is clenched in my right hand.

I catch the taxi and jump in. "I left my phone in here!" I wheeze.  The driver turns.  He's not my driver.  I jump out and look around, desperately now.  He's gone.  I walk into the mall, paying for my track meet with sheets of sweat running down my face, chest and back.  I walk through the make-up counters and a sales girl tries to tout Shisedo foundation.  Are you kidding me?!  I'm drenched like a sea monster seconds emerged from the primordial ooze. 

At this moment, I realize my wallet is not in my right hand.

I must've set it on the seat of the second taxi.  I really don't know what happened.  I was that colossally stupid.  The phone was a piece of shit, half-broken vintage Blackberry.  I was going to throw it out after this trip.  I managed to lose the gold while trying to save some cubic zirconium. 

You've had this moment.  You're in a public space and something goes so unexpectedly, sourly wrong.  You want to throw yourself on the floor, open up the gates and let tears and screams issue forth like the devil's own stallions.  You want to beat the ground and sob and sob; hard, open.  You want to let all the frustration and sadness and anger and fear- so much fear- come rolling through you for a few precious, painful, beautifully releasing seconds, until Mommy comes and picks you up in her arms and makes everything better with the tap tap tap between your shoulders, and the soft ch ch ch sound halfway between a cluck and a kiss.

But you don't let go. 

Because you're fucking 38 years old, Mommy ain't coming and you need to clean up your own God damn messes.  Antos.  Pull it together.

Thank God for Jose.  If I was in a city without a friend, I don't know what I would've done.  I catch a taxi - fucking taxis! - back to Jose's apartment and borrow 100 pesos for the ride.  I have US dollars in my money belt, so I'm okay for cash.  I call the banks at home.  Bank of America, blessed BofA!  I'm sorry for all the abuse I've hurled at you over the years!  They are processing my debit card and sending it to Jose's apartment in three days total time, no extra charge.  HSBC, why did I ever sing your praises?  I chose you because of your huge international presence, because I figured you could help out in situations exactly like this.  But they will take 6 days, and that's the rush order, to mail my credit card to my San Francisco address.  And a lot of good that will do me!

At some point, maybe in a week, this will become my crazy "Lost My Wallet in a Manila Taxi" story.  It will make me sound adventuresome and worldly.  I'll dress it up with tranny hookers, baskets of dried fish and an old woman with two teeth.  But for now, its just bloody hard and I want to call the trip off and go home to my country and my ATMs and my bed and my boyfriend.

Antos.  It's a Visayan word that means something like suck it up, bite the bullet, hang on baby 'coz the sun will rise at dawn.

I"m grounded in the Philippines for a while more.  I don't wan't to spend my time in Manila.  The winds shift.  Jose and I set our sails northward to Ilocos.