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Thursday, June 16, 2005
Garcia: Bugged
By Pablo John Garcia
Breakfast at Noon
The eagle has landed…”
That would be me talking on my cell phone these days, after those darned audio recordings came out.
It’s difficult enough having a normal conversation with a gadget pressed against your ear. But when you have to talk in codes, you spend precious minutes just trying to get your message across, and even more trying to decipher what the person on the other line is trying to say.
“The cat, on her eighth life, has just crossed over to the other side…” Please run that by me again. Because you might as well have been talking about a chicken.
Honestly, it’s been barely three weeks since Gary became a household name but already we’re running out of animals.
Speaking in codes actually wasn’t my first option. I first thought that if I talked with Indian accent, I could actually have a plausible defense. I mean if you’ve ever heard a recording of someone speaking with an Indian accent, you’d actually presume it was spliced until proven authentic. Years of watching Indian TV taught me that.
But when my friends, then my wife, stopped taking my calls, I chucked that one in favor of animals.
“Pls kol. Impt.” I’d text to assure them. “Minus d Indian accent,” they’d text back.
So it’s been animals ever since. Mammals for everyday conversation, reptiles for technical subjects, birds for conceptual discussions – well, you know how it works. But why am I blowing my cover, for God’s sake. As a wise man once said (if he were speaking in code): “You can not tiger, much less, lion an aardvark even if there were anteaters.”
It used to be that the cell phone was my comfort zone. My security blanket. With a cell phone in my hand, I was protected by an impenetrable force field of sorts. No more uneasy rides on a bus beside a complete stranger. I could be sitting in a public place beside someone I didn’t know and my palms wouldn’t perspire, as they used to.
I just bring out my cell phone. I’d text people I otherwise wouldn’t if I weren’t threatened with having to engage in small talk with someone simply because you happen to be sitting together. “Are we on the same plane?” I hope not.
If the stranger persists, you can actually even make imaginary calls to imaginary people. Just don’t forget to put your phone on silent mode.
Because there actually was this woman there in the SuperCat terminal who was talking loudly, and animatedly, about things calculated to impress people who were within hearing distance. Then, suddenly, her phone–that same phone--rang.
Samuel Ong has broken that sense of security. And what makes it unforgivable is that I can’t think about him without thinking about Rez Cortes listening in on my conversations with that famous smirk (his only form of acting) on his face.
Well, as Sun Tzu said (if he were speaking in code): The American bald eagle is swift, but an iguana will always defy the typical marsupial.
(pablojohn@gmail.com)
(June 16, 2005 issue)
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