A day in the life of a nine-to-fiver

YOU know how cats are when they're having sex. Like humans, they're noisy. But quite unlike humans, they're violently noisy (I mean, where's the tender love and affection?). It took two cats at the violent throes of passion to jolt me out of sleep.

Of course, I say my morning prayer. Then, I rummage through the kitchen cupboard downstairs. I grab a cup of desiccated noodle for the office in lieu of a real breakfast. You see, my apartment is so stricken by poverty that the resident rats complain and eventually die of hunger (How come there are so many cats around here?).

I prepare to take a bath but my brother Rommel beats me to it. He uses water as if he has an entire ocean for a bathroom. "Go easy on the water," I holler, stratospheric bills in mind. Geez, I'm running late.

On the road

Life's many other little paradoxes assert themselves the minute I slam the door shut on my way to work. I ride an FX taxi. The streets are clogged as usual with jeepneys, buses and cars of every make, but many other commuters have nothing else to take them to work! By the look of the commuters' faces, it seems like they've been waiting for at least one danged year. One pines for the Holy Week when the roads are totally deserted, anyone can stage a ballroom dancing class without having to stop, look and listen.

Inevitably, the question shoves itself in my face: Why exactly is traffic almost always bad? Let's see. On Mondays, all roads lead to Metro Manila where people come back from their weekend getaways in the provinces. On Wednesdays, all roads supposedly lead to Baclaran and it is the tail end of the bunch-up wherever you are currently trapped.

On Fridays, all roads lead to Quiapo. On Saturdays, all roads lead to the malls, and at night, to the city's watering holes. On Sundays, all roads lead to churches and yet to the malls; entire families hie off to nearby resorts in an exodus. So, we're left with Tuesdays and Thursdays to keep our sanity.

But when the traffic actually eases up, you're sure the city screeches to an abnormal standstill. It could be a rally on EDSA or a major transport strike.

The girl in front of me stares at me for a long, undignified period of time, i.e., long enough to get caught. I take it to mean three things: (1) I look familiar to her, (2) I look sexually appealing to her, she's waiting for me to give her my call card. (3) She badly wants to tell me my fly is open. In general, I mind invasion of privacy. Not this one. I would actually get mad if anybody showed zero interest, because it can only mean three things as well: (1) The girl likes guys but not those prettier than her, (2) She likes girls more than she likes guys, (3) My fly is open. So I check it out. It's securely closed.

I arrive in the office in one piece through sheer miracle. Praying really works wonders. I swipe my identification card at the timer. Yes, I am late by a minute, which triggers me into pensive mode. (Annie's Song playing in the background.)

I remember the day I found my present job (snivel, snivel). I wanted to hug and kiss anyone I could see within my field of vision and throw a party. I couldn't say a word but "Yes!" in between pumping the air with my fist. Today (tears now rolling), reporting for work can mean dragging my heavy-duty shoes forward as though I had elephantiasis, as though I'm being dragged to the electric chair.

I make myself feel guilty by thinking about the swelling number of the unemployed, the underemployed, and the foreign-employed.

Pleasantries

With a thunderclap of a voice, my officemate Alma announces for all to hear in the office that I look so "officious" today with my chosen attire, like a cloak of authority. Alma has this bad habit of putting her friends on the spot. I don't quite know how to react, as I grope for the most appropriate word of retaliation. Then, with finality, I fulminate at her:
"You're...you're contumacious!" This is how I annoy people who annoy me--I turn encyclopedic. Alma speeds off towards the latest edition of Webster's dictionary, flipping over the pages like crazy. This is our version of a morning pleasantry.

The phone rings and I answer with a sincere hello. The voice returns my kindness by responding like I am a retard.

Actual work

I haven't stopped singing hosannas the day after I walked into an office room of thunderous clapping, reeling from the success of a recent job allegedly well done. It's one of the things that have kept me going. But that was so long ago. The point is, I wouldn't mind a repeat of it. My typical work consists of word transpositions, deletions, insertions and grammatical corrections to legal documents. Thus, a long title such as "Practical guidelines in hiring an environmental consultant to perform investigation and cleanup activities for leaking underground storage tanks" is sloughed off to "Practical guidelines in hiring consultant for investigation and clean up of leaking underground storage tanks." I fume, I snort, I explode at every error or my pulse quickens at every exhibition of expertise.

I would describe my current job as exacting, monotonous, tedious, and taxing. It has squeezed me out, tied me down, burnt me out and got my goat, bringing out the worst in me. My job has improved my vocabulary.

Lunch break

"What are we going to ingest?" I ask my lunchmates equally dismayed by the lousy canteen food. We decide to eat out. I reach out for my wallet and find that it's gone. "That girl in the FX taxi! She wanted to tell me something!"

I manage with the tragedy. We take a table shaped in a curious polygon. We have what they call a "power lunch." We call ourselves the Knights of the Trapezoidal Table. The day's agenda delves on, among many other topics, Chinoys with funny names: Washington Dy-Sy, Andy Lim, Edgar Allan Pe, and Bennett Ong. We return to work with laugh marks on our faces and gas pains in our stomach. I forget about my lost wallet.

Upon our return, we are told that we have to work overtime.

Back home

I'm back home through sheer miracle. Being burned out makes me think: The only way to make extra money and get a life is to work overtime. But working overtime steals away all my time and energy, so I end up having no life. My life-or non-life-redefines the meaning of Catch 22.

When night falls, I toss and flip my body in the bed of metaphysical unease, waiting for time to stand still and my memory to fade, that I may lose counting sheep jumping over a stile. I switch on the TV only to turn it off. I read a book instead, only to dog-ear a page. In lotus position, I ruminate on life's joys and pains, love, death and dreams.

At the end of the day, it's between me and my God. I talk to Him, confront Him. I've been working for almost 10 years now and I'm still renting an apartment, still commuting using public transport, still dependent on a finite income. What happened? Should I blame You or should I blame me? It seems that I've been lulled by my steady income into the pits of complacency. It seems that I wasn't ambitious enough or daring enough. I should have tried working abroad or starting up my own little enterprise. Tell me God, is ambition bad, or am I just being told to move on?

At REM stage, I enter a world as grotesque as that of Hieronymus Bosch's and Salvador Dali's. Not unlike my waking hours. I dream about all sorts of things. I dream of blue-eyed foxes, strange birds and butterflies. I dream I'm a prisoner of war during the Japanese occupation. I dream of having Nelson Mandela's ear for lunch.

I have no intention of interpreting these stupid dreams. All I know is, even my dreams are consistently crazy. Suddenly, my dream of a bird of prey plucking at my private parts is cut short by the sound of two cats at the violent throes of passion. You know how cats are when they're having sex.