ONE night last week, my son and I came home dead tired and ready to hit the sack, so to speak. It had been a long day, made even longer by a string of encounters which I am going to tell you about now.

My house cleaner of more than 15 years was scheduled to come for her weekly clean-up day. She usually came in the morning, before I left for work, and I'd leave her lunch, snacks and P500. I had been satisfied with her work and, more importantly, her honesty.

Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo

That day, however, after she had left, I found out that something was missing. I did not make any conclusions but I was very disappointed and hurt, not so much for the loss of the possessions as for the loss of confidence, which was harder to repair or replace.

Later that day, a friend phoned me to say that he might not be able to pay off a loan for which I was a co-maker, which meant I had to pick up the tab for him. We had a heated exchange but in the end, after I had hung up, I wanted to bang my head against the wall for being so stupid and for having to suffer the consequences of a favor I had done for a friend in need.

Just then the phone rang again and I eagerly picked it up, hoping for some good news to comfort me. It took me awhile before I realized she was a friend from long ago who had stopped seeing me after I lent her a camera. "I am sorry I ran away from you," she began. "I am ready to return your camera."

I had given up on that camera long ago and now that she was returning it, it was like getting a new one for free. How strange that I felt grateful for something which was really mine in the first place!

"But," she continued, "we have to get it from the pawnshop. I had pawned it for P1500.00 and it will expire today and I have no money." I sank in my chair after realizing what she meant: I was now going to pay P1500 to reclaim my own camera!

I asked her where the pawnshop was. I thought, what's P1,500 more to retrieve a P30,000 camera?

"I will give you the receipt so you can get it yourself," she told me. I snapped back, "No, you get it." The gall of this girl for wanting to make me suffer the indignity of entering a pawnshop. "Why don't we go in together?" she offered. "Why don't I just wait for you outside?" I told her.

So I picked her up and we drove to the pawnshop. I gave her three crisp P500 bills, which she quickly pocketed. She said, "I'll be back in two minutes!" And she was gone.

I waited for five, ten, thirty minutes, until a traffic aide asked me to park somewhere else. I drove away, calling myself stupid over and over.

As we drove home that night, my son asked me why I looked miserable. I faced him and said, "Son, this is one of those days."

But the day wasn't over yet.

When we got home, there was a man and a woman with an infant at the gate. They looked like the Holy Family en route to Egypt, minus the camel.

When I got down the man opened wide his arms and said, with a grin so wide you could insert a banana sideways: "Sir, long time no see!"

I swear that was the first time I had seen that man in my whole life. But he looked nice and harmless and I really have a poor memory, so I let him and his wife and child inside the house.

Over dinner he recounted how we met, and enumerated the names of our supposedly common friends, none of which rang a bell. When he was finished, I told him, "I still don't remember."

He said he came because he was going to invite me to be one of the godparents for his child's christening, to be held at the end of the month in Dau. "But I hardly know you," I told him. He gave me a sad, hurt look so I said, very reluctantly, "Well, okay. I accept." His smile returned and he continued slurping his soup.

As he wiped his mouth, he cleared his throat, glanced at his wife and dropped the bomb: "Sir, this is a little embarrassing, but can I borrow P500?" My instinct told me I should drive this lying scum of the earth and his equally deceitful wife out of my sight.

Instead, I just sat there, staring at him. Then I began to laugh, a chuckle at first, then it became a mad, hysterical laughter, because it had been a mad, hysterical day, and also because the poverty and misery in this world was such that, if I didn't laugh I'd end up crying.

I took out a P500 bill from my wallet and put it in his hand, saying, "There! Take it! For sheer originality and creativity you've earned your P500!" The poor man who I'm sure could settle for much less, hugged me and promised he was going to send the invitation the very next day.

Of course he never did.