I’m a relic. Oi!

It was my sister’s graduation rites and I was ready to strangle everyone in the gymnasium. I felt like Carrie before she went completely mental and roasted the entire prom population. It was horrible. I had every inclination to morph into every Japanese manga monster the entire day. The day wore on with my body inhabited by a 200 year old hag.

So okay, the graduation wasn’t really that terrible. It was just 2 hours late--but I blame that on third world traffic. The key-note speaker was quick with his speech, nothing too fancy or elaborate, considering that he most likely had been a rock in his past life. And the college had the consideration of cooling the place with AC’s. Although I apparently wasn’t getting in processed air into my lungs enough to prevent me from inhaling every virus within a 50 meter radius. I now have clogged and very red nostrils, and enough snot to power a medium-sized locomotive. But that’s another story.

The highlight of the day wasn’t the graduation, however, it was the ride home. It was straight out from a shiny hollywood hallucination of the end-of-the-world (think: war of the worlds) --- the part when the entire human race has the exact idea of dashing for the nearest exit. In this case, it was the sea port in Ozamis.

The thing that bothers me most is that it could have turned out different, had I been more patient and poised and calm about it. But somehow the Godzilla that I harbor inside me always run amok at the sight of dirty villains dressed as port security. My Godzilla had singled out its rage into a puny 120 lbs lizard. He was prehistoric, to say the least. I imagined every nerve in my body pop right out of my head. I was Carrie. Period. I screamed incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo at him enough to fill the Ozbourn Family with an entire episode. It wasn’t exactly the best display of my social skills.

Here’s what happened. It was already 7 in the evening and we had to take a ferry to get across the channel to the next town. We had been queuing in line for over an hour and the traffic wouldn’t budge. It was raining hard and the car I was in had no air-conditioning. Hence, it was hot, wet and maddening. My bladder also happened to fill to burst and the nearest toilet was a 20 meter sprint-- that if you could manage to find it. The hold-up was almost bearable at first, but Toothless-lizard guy showed up and “manned” the traffic. He had a few slip ups. The first were bearable. He ushered in the 1st column of vehicles all at once without considering the first few earlier cars that were held up at the other columns, including us, who were stationed at the first row of cars. No one said anything at first. But he did it again. And again and again. He wouldn’t let the other columns pass through. So everyone screamed bloody murder and wanted to eat him for dinner. The thing that stumps me the most is that I sort of played a hand with the whole fiasco. I created the first shouting match. I was the catalyst and all hell broke loose. Several matches later, the guy shrunk back to his cave, and we we’re through. We were on the ferry by 8:30.

I am not proud by what I had turned into. Another year goes by and your daily resolution to being less an arse and to walk tall as the poised, elegant, refined, cautious, smart, sensible new you just disappears by every momentary, er, slip up. I’m not feeling really grade-A these days. My self-esteem is way below par value. By the way things are going, I’m going to retire as an endorphin-starved 60 year old prune. I’ll be a relic!

Then again, there’s always tomorrow.