The White Getaway
It almost did not happen. That quasi-romantic caper I’92ve been playing over and over in my mind. My thoughts of literally sweeping the significant other off her feet, transforming myself into the bull that Zeus turned himself into, catching unaware my Europa who would be helplessly dangling from my back, while I, gliding over turquoise waters, take her to a stretch of a wildly white island, almost evaporated with the roaring engine of the Cebu Pacific plane that I should have boarded, but had mercilessly left me to watch its willful ascent.
Thirty minutes before my scheduled flight, Cebu Pacific, deciding that it can no longer wait for me, closed its check-in counters, leaving me almost fainting and in a state of despair. Teary-eyed, I begged the counter guy to make an exception, spewing off shameless excuses like I’92m attending an early wedding of a relative who is a friend of Lance Gokongwei’92s cousin’92s neighbor and whose dad is almost dying; to no avail. Unimpressed, he stamped LCI on my ticket (LCI for Lame Crackhead of an Idiot). Professionalism is a bloody bitch when it doesn’92t go your way. I felt the airport terminal getting smaller and smaller and my legs beginning to give way from under me. Shit like this happens all the time, but never to me. I stayed awake for 20 hours straight, working through my Friday night to ensure that I won’92t miss my 5 am flight. But I did.
Murphy’92s Law was in full swing and it’92s giving me the finger.
It took me 15 minutes to get it together. I was debating with myself on how I should react. The easiest thing to do would be to break down and cry like a little sissy girl, but I felt that it’92s such a clich’e9 already, having done that a couple of times and in more humiliating circumstances, with lots of people watching of course (it’92s a useless thing to cry when there’92s nobody around to see you make an embarrassment of yourself). I willed myself to think rationally. That’92s what an MBA is for, to take stock of your alternatives when all you’92d rather do is lay down and die, and then hope against hope that you will be able to fool yourself into thinking that it’92s really not that bad. So what if days of meticulous planning just went down a cockroach-infested drain? You could have been a cockroach and there’92s nothing more disgusting than that.
