Written Contusions

Lesson 4: A kid should not be allowed to run wild in the Antipolo area, especially within the driveways of Assumption - Antipolo.

1987 - Year 4 in the life of Rchrd.

Back in the day, my mother and father worked for a school bus company that ferried children to different prominent schools in the Philippines. My father worked as a bus driver, and my mother worked as a bus mother. Her work entailed that she took care of the kids, especially the ones that hava a habit of standing up and running around the bus while it is moving.

At that age, 4 years old, I was still sorely attached to my mother so she would usually bring me to work. Otherwise, the entire neighborhood would be woken by my loud cry at 5:00 AM. Since the job was relatively easy - she just had to really work when the kids are there - it allowed her to bring me with her.

She was assigned to a bus that took kids to Assumption - Antipolo. While waiting for the kids' dismissal time, we would often sit on the grass and have a picnic. There were also cashew trees in the vicinity of the school so we would pick the fallen fruits and play with it. However, one day, I got the impression that it was fun to run on the asphalt driveway of a downhill road. She tried to run after me, but she was too late. "Blag!" I went down on my forehead and rolled a few feet more.

That fall was monumental because I got a bump on my forehead that really protrudes from it. Even now, when I look at myself in the mirror, I can still see that bump on the right side of my forehead.

At about 2:30 PM, I was listening to Jordin Sparks' song, No Air. Part of the lyrics asks:


No air? Hmmm... Is that a trick question? That's elementary, my dear Jordin. You need to grow some gills. Gills are used by fishes to breathe water instead of air. Simple, isn't it?!

"Chad, what is 137 x 2?" Kate asked me last Monday. That was when we were buying 2 reams of bond paper for her project.

"374!" I replied with confidence.

"No, it's 274," she said in defiance.

Kate couldn't accept my answer and we insisted on our respective answers in front of the cashier. To finally settle the discussion, I took out my cell phone and calculated the real answer. To my surprise and utter embarrassment, the calculator did say 274.

Tuesday came and went. Before going home for the day, Kate and I had to submit reports to our boss. I was supposed to tally my work output for the day and I had to ask for the sum of 16 and 8. Since I acknowledged that I am really bad at math, I asked Kate.

"21," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Everybody reacted with a gasp. After a few seconds, there was laughter all over our office. Our boss corrected us and said that the correct answer is 24. At that point, I felt that Kate and I were equals again; she can't boast her math skills over mine.

When I got home, I decided to do more work. At around 11 PM, I started wrapping up and I had to send another report. I had to email the report to my boss. I tallied my work again and I sent the report. After sending the report, I read my email again and I my mouth went agape!

I miscalculated the figures again. It was supposed to be 8 + 6. However, I put 10 instead of 14. Oh my God! I immediately wrote a follow-up email correcting my figures. Nevertheless, the embarrassment was already there and there's no way to take it back. After everything that happened, I learned one very important thing:

When faced with math problems, use a calculator.

A silly thought occurred to me while I was smoking with my friends just outside of the office. My friend, Donna, was saying that she wanted something sweet to eat. I started thinking of sweet things to eat so I paced around. While pacing, I noticed that the floor was sticky and there were ants walking all over the sticky floor. That was when the thought occurred!

"I have a question," I said.

Chiqui responded, "What?"

"Do you believe the saying that you are what you eat?"

Chiqui thought about it for a bit before saying, "Yes, I guess so."

"If that is true, should it follow that ants are sweet too since they love to eat sweet things?"

After saying that, of course, there was thunderous laughter all around.

Sometime two weeks ago, I saw a cockroach crawling underneath our washing machine. I know, this might not be the best choice for a blog entry since you might think that I am sloppy but this is actually very disturbing.

Knowing that its really not a good thing to have a cockroach in the house, I asked my kid cousin to swat the unholy creature dead. After a considerable amount of crawling to dodge the swat of death, the cockroach finally managed to stay still long enough for my cousin to kill it. Thinking that he already swept the dead insect, I turned to more pressing issues, i.e. the game show I was watching and I forgot all about it.

Evening came and I noticed that the little rascal was still there, dead and flat on the floor. However, I didn't want to sweep the germ-infested thing so I left it to my sister. While watching TV later on, my sister called me in a distressed and excited scream and she was laughing she asked me to guess what happened to her. I told her I had no clue and patience to guess so she energetically told me that our dead little cockroach was taken by another cockroach. This might be our hard evidence that cockroaches, over the millenia, have developed a culture and became civilized enough to claim and bury their dead.

Freaky huh?! I am still haunted by the thought. Brrrrr....

A few days later, my sister reported that the cockroach was returned to the original spot where it lay dead. She saw another cockroach dragging the dead one while she was sweeping.