day twenty-four

what i’m about to share is something that i have to tell carefully, because it might otherwise get back at me.

way back in 2004, valentine’s day. we were going to bicutan, the aguilar mansion, and we decided to meet at a certain train station. when i got off the train, i saw ced, martin and isko were already there. we were still waiting for someone else then, probably jerry, and as i expected he would be late. now we were still in the station, i was getting bored, not exactly great sights to see there. it was a saturday and it was in the afternoon, not that many people inside the station nothing to do except yosi..

as it has always been my instinct, whenever i am inside an enclosed or indoor structure. you look for an ashtray. the presence of an ashtray means the presence of a smoking area isn’t it? so i looked around,  beside a magazine stand i saw the aluminum trash that has a bowl on the top and two big holes at the sides. the holes are for the real trash, you throw it in there right? the bowl is for cigarette ash and butts right? so i said “ced tara yosi muna”. ced bored to his cajones agreed and followed me. i had my own stick and lighter, approaching the trash can i lit my yosi and being the smiley-faced jackass that i was greeted the man next to the trashcan. it was then he said something like “brod bawal mag-yosi dito..”. of course i was stupefied by that, it was then i realized.. how could i not recognize that uniform from afar? come one! nose blocking the view? sheesh.. and then he pointed me to the direction where a no smoking sign the size of post-it note was pasted on a wall. WTF?!! who would see that small a thing on a wall at once? ants??? and besides what was the point of having a trashcan with florgin used cigarette butts on its ashtray if it was a non-smoking area?!! okay the guys was a little old, probably forgot his algebra. yosi = ashtray, ashtray = smoking area, therefore yosi = smoking area! so what i was supposed to do? review the guy on congruence? i argued. but i knew i was caught. i was already pissed off at myself for being such an idiot that i really didn’t plead my case. all i remembered were short phrases like “di ko po nakita yung sign” and “nakakaisang hithit pa lang ako boss”. of course those things really don’t work on mr. law enforcer.

luckily, ced didn’t light his stick yet so i was the only perp. mr. law enforcer asked for my id, i had my driver’s license and my college id on me only at that time. of course i gave him my college id, but he took the details of my driver’s license. i was more curious on the sheet of paper he was writing on. i didn’t know you could get tickets for smoking illegally, obviously not a traffic ticket.. could be called a citation ticket. so i was shocked when he handed me the sheet of paper and the heading started with an S. i read the violation and he specified Others: Anti-Smoking Ban.. okay so wait, they had a ban for.. anti-smoking? and i got caught because i was smoking? holy smokes batman! anyway, that thing was the only thing i’ve read and the part where i have to go an office and basically see what i needed to do or probably how much i needed to pay. when mr. law enforcer left, my friends were laughing at me, ced was relieved he didn’t light his, i was shaking my head in disbelief. and then afterwards we went to a real smoking area and smoked. bored and pissed off. i am a stubborn sonuvalion.

fast forward to 2005. yes, a year after. i totally forgot about the thing. okay not totally forgot, it kept popping into my head that i had to go to that office and stuff. one day i took the ticket out and it was already getting brown on the edges. i read what was written and i found out that i had only a set amount of hours to report to that office. and that amount of time was not anywhere near the length of a year. so i knew i was screwed, i just didn’t know how tightly i was screwed. i called jec up, told him again of the story and basically agreed to accompany me. so we went to that office on one weekday afternoon. we approached a clerk lady and then she was flipping pages through a logbook. literally flipping pages, it did took a year right. and then she said like “naku overdue na to, inakyat na to sa legal department”.. huwaaat??!! legal?? judge, jury and execu.. legal??? so we were instructed to go to the city hall. now this was funny part, that day we went to that office was the anniversary day of that city. and it didn’t cross our minds that the city hall would have no employees in it! and we walked to go there! 2 hours of walking for nothing productive. we went inside the building, took the elevator up to the legal department and still we didn’t get it. there was nobody there. sheesh.

the next day i decided to call the legal office first before i go back. the lady who answered said she’d have to look for the record first because it was so long ago. i was already in let-this-be-over-coz-it-sucks mode. when she called back, it was very weird because she was talking in direct and short sentences. she first said “david, come by the office tomorrow. bring the summon. i’ll give you your id.”.. that wasn’t enough for me, i had to know how deep in shit i was so i asked how much i had to pay or if i needed to do anything and other stuff. she answered “just come here. look for me. i’ll give your id back.” .. it was so weird i wasn’t able to answer back at once and then i just said thanks. i called jec up and told him what happened. he thought that it might be really serious so he advised just to be prepared and he’d still accompany me. so the next day we went back to city hall, i had around 8,000 pesos in cash with me just in case and half my blood already dry because of the tension. when we arrived at the legal office, i quietly asked for that lady. after getting directions, i thought “oh man, this is it” . then the lady asked if i was who i was, i said yes. she took my id from her drawer and then frowned looking at the id and then looked at me.. “ikaw to?”.. okay so my college id was taken when i was in my first year, 7 years before that. of course i wouldn’t look exactly like that, especially after gaining like 70 pounds. and jec, being appreciative of the  many memorable moments of my life laughed so hard. his laughter infected the lady and then she was already giggling too. she then gave me the id. i asked what next. she said there was nothing else and i can go home. now nobody in their right mind would think twice after hearing that. i said thanks very sincerely and we got the heck out of there. jec was still laughing and added comments by how notorious my college id was. it was only in the parking lot that we realized that i had my id and that was it. no fees paid, no court thingies, nothing. jec and i didn’t really know why. maybe my record was so old that it got lost, or the lady simply just wanted to help me and not hassle me for such a small thing as an anti-smoking ban violation. jec got a free lunch out of it, since i had a lot of cash on me at that time, and the amusement of seeing other people laugh at my id. we went home, still not believing how lucky i was. justice is served.

in case you want to see the actual violation ticket, just say so and i’ll send you the scanned file. hehe