Okay, this really sucks.

I went to Ms. Joy Cancio’s studio in Quezon City for a very short meeting. We’re shooting a TVC with her Sex Bomb girls as talents tomorrow, so we met up to discuss some teensy final details. It didn’t last longer than 20 minutes, though. After the meeting, I immediately hailed a cab and went back to the office.

Inside the taxi, I was fumbling all over for my phone. I checked my pockets, I poured out all the contents of my bag, and managed to find only my slimy green Sun phone (the old 5210 I bought way back in 2002). Not really the panicky type, I got off the cab, walked into our building, borrowed the company phone and immediately dialed my cell number. It rang. Great! That means my phone wasn’t deliberately stolen, right? I must have left it in Joy’s studio, right?

Wrong.

When I dialed my number and no one picked up, I decided to call up Joy and asked her to check if my phone was in her office. “It’s not here,” she said.

Hmm. There was no way I could have left it in the second cab. And it wasn’t in Joy’s office (which is highly possible, because I never took the phone out of my bag while I was there). Then only one possibility remains: I must have left it in the cab I rode in Ortigas going to her studio. Less than an hour after I found out I lost my phone, I tried calling it up again and it had already been turned off.

So now, it’s goodbye to my 2-year old Ericsson. Goodbye to all the videos and pictures stored there. Goodbye to 500 or so friends’ and work contacts’ numbers. Goodbye to marked dates. Goodbye to this new box of calling cards that I will never be able to use from this day on because they carry that friggin’ “old” number. 

Now, I’m seriously considering going post-paid again. Oh God, cure me of this forgetfulness blight…

Phoneless for the nth time

I’ve lost phones a couple of times for a myriad of reasons, major of which was sheer carelessness. The first unit I misplaced was a 7110—lost forever because I got too drunk in some bar in Timog. Another phone was stolen by the maid. One got snatched in Baguio while I was digging through piles of ukay-ukay clothes. I thought the one that was stolen while I was on a bus going to Sorsogon would be the last in my perennially sorry phone ownership state (dang, that phone was not even mine! It was a 6600 that Raz lent me).

But no. That Ericsson, with which I am completely satisfied (a built-in camera, a big enough memory, call recording capacity, predictive texting, and calendar are the only features I need, really), had just gone Pffft! Again.

My family often teases me about needing a phone that is not just shock-proof (I’m a hopeless burara), but nakaw-proof as well. Looks like the old joke’s bout to be revived.

Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’ve come to terms with it. I even jokingly claim, "I’ve accepted it and I’m at peace with it." Come to think of it, I was never really one to wreak havoc over a lost phone. Well, all right; I’d panic for about 10 minutes or so, but after the reality of the loss has been established, I shrug my shoulders and mutter, “Oh well.” Honestly, I have more important stuff to worry about and lose sleep over. Besides, I still have this green phone and a Sun number to use temporarily. A friend told me over YM, “Maybe the universe is telling you to get a new phone.” WOW naman. The universe really made sure I got the message.

Bad trip lang cause there’s no way I could retrieve my most treasured photo which also happened to be my phone’s wallpaper: my picture with Parokyo ni Edgar’s Chito Miranda, my forever crush, taken last October at the Davao Airport (talagang kinarir ko pang magpakuha with him using my phone!).

Not that I’d mind being confused as Chito’s non-showbiz girlfriend. *Wink* A girl can dream, can’t she?