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Friday, February 13, 2004
The 300 poso valentine
By Keith Aparri Bacalso
It is comforting to know that the best things in life are for free, however, the flipside is that there will always be a price tag on other (tangible and far more easily appreciated albeit “not important”) things. No matter how much your lower brain centers tell you “love will keep us alive,” your higher brain centers will always argue (convincingly too, and with quite a body of evidence to boot) the opposite. Money seems to be the “umbrella need” nowadays – so much for food, shelter and clothing. So there, you definitely need money to answer your need for company this Valentines Day. Luckily, P300 seems to fit your budget, so there, let us work with that.
February 14, 4:00 pm, and you find yourself in a mall (after a P4 jeepney ride) – somewhere both of you consider as a convenient place to meet. However, precious minutes walk by like the countless couples who walk hand in hand past you – you who are sitting all alone waiting for your date. Now why is she late? You try to text her and yet, beep – check operator services. Shoot, now that’s P30 less to your P300 budget for a quick and cheap reload. After swapping a few “Hi, wer r u?” messages, she nonchalantly walks into your line of vision and you instantly get flutterbies in your stomach – her unexplained delay is promptly forgotten and you set your plan into motion.
You then take her for a not-so-romantic jeepney ride (P8) to the pier, where you catch the 5:30 pm ferryboat ride (P11, remember to bring a school ID, they won’t check if it’s from eons ago) and watch the sunset on your way across to Mactan – now that’s romantic. You then light 3 candles (“I love you” at a peso each) at the Birhen sa Regla and buy her a bunch of flowers (P10) while you take a stroll at the nearby plaza while eating ice cream (P15). You might as well capture the moment with the help of a roving cameraman too (P50) and engage in some small talk.
All the while, you text Atan, who rents out indigenous banigs for P10 and meet with him at the new bridge (P8 away from the plaza). After staring at all the pretty lights from the bridge, you can then take her for a walk and sing her a couple of songs in one of the many videokes (P10) that line the street.
On the same street, you can catch a multi-cab (P8) and find yourselves in Ibo sometime around 8 pm, where they serve food ala Larsian, where say, P82 (P10 for puso, P12 for atay,P20 for fish, another P20 for pork bbq, and P20 for the drinks) will give the both of you more than enough to eat Now, why Ibo? It’s because its where your rented banig will come in handy – not only can you hear the gentle waves if you spread it by the shore, the both of you can stargaze and talk while all the planes fly right above you to somewhere with a less prettier view – beats any movie, any time. You can then toss the guitar guy P5 to sing Cebuano love songs for the both of you, yep, the harana works too.
Sometime after 2 hours of sweet nothings and amusing chatter, you walk her to the street and ride another multi-cab (P8) back to the jeepney terminal – where Atan waits for his banigs – and where you ride a jeepney (P10) to the Mandaue hi-way where the both of you catch another ride (P10) for your princess’ castle somewhere in, say, Consolacion. After you get the goodbyes over with, you can then catch a double ride (P5 and P5) back to Ayala where the last leg of your quest for love ends with a ride home. Not a bad day, not a bad date and you still have P14 in your pocket and pleasant dreams as you sleep off the rest of February 14…
(February 13, 2004 issue)
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