Snatch a day

Snatching a day off a somewhat busy schedule is sort of an unclear thing to do. I mean, you get a day, or two, without work, but then it's entirely without use, unless you get to do something else that could, at any attempt, get your mind off of work. But I never thought some other unusual and suprising attempts were made on my cellphone on that day.

So I decided to go to the beach, with some old friends, and planned to try a new sport, its called skim boarding, which mother incidentally refered to as "skin" boarding over the phone, sorry if I did not have the headset on, I mis pronounced. Skim boarding was tough and it hurt too, it left me bruises, ankle sprain, and almost dislocated my right shoulder - good thing I knew how to fall with my back and chin tuck in- but it still did not help me with the skim part. I couldn't imagine how "skin" boarding would be like, mother, just as I still could not imagine how skim boarding feels, truly.

But before those, of course I had to be on a jeepney on the way to the place, the four of us equally distributed to the two long seats facing each other- 3 on our side and edwin on the other, well that's not equal- but what other arrangement can you have inside a jeepney? So for the snatchers strategic delight, I was sitting beside the friend who couldn't stop joking around with jokes forced to make us laugh, though of course they often did make us laugh, I still don't know why.

So the short stout guy who looked like a mute country middle aged man sat beside me with a relatively large travelling bag on his lap, which was on my lap as well I though he was up to something. The tall dark guy sitting to his right was comfortably pressed against the short stout guy you'd thought they were conjoined twins. But of course I knew they were'nt, just look at the height difference I thought, so despite the fact that there were only the five of us on that 8 capacity seat, the idea of the two pressed side by side and against me did not make me realize at all they were snatchers, of cellphone in that particular instance- though of course I still thought someone must be up to something.

Well at some point, a thought feeling that there was something up with the arrangement got through my mind. But fortunately for the bastards, as soon and as fast as my friend's next attempt to conjure a statement, and failing to organize it as to make a humourous sense out of it, the thought slipped off my sleepy, neurotic head quite as easily. The head that did not quite feel the tires against the road, and the jeepney moving against the humidity, what more of the "pulot barya" gang who cluttered, and there were three of them, against my 6 year old dying cellphone which couldn't hold its own case cover nor turn on the camera phone, or the crazy keypads. If only I had known that it would take this much team effort, and strategic eloquence, from 3 able &*^#_%*_@ men to try and snatch my cellphone from my pocket, I could have kept this precious device inside a bank vault or something.

Well then I guess it's either because of my snatcher-look, or the shades I wore that tipped them I had a saleable phone, or they were just trying to beat a working schedule, I do not know still why me? I'v never had any problems walking around any street, anytime, worrying somebody might make a move on me-it's more like the other way around.

So the third and I would assume, the playmaker of the three eggheads sat on the seat fronting us, beside another friend. He wore eyeglasses like everybody else were supposed to wear them, and had a decent polo on too, now that doesn't suprise me at all.

Too decent in fact, that the only reason I had in mind when he, out of nowhere, kept on pestering us with the impression that he was looking for his 20 peso bill that fell somewhere behind, above, and below our feet, doing it so many times and in unusual desperation, I thought he was trying to make it look like the 20 peso bill I had in my hand was his, or the missing 20 peso bill was the only money he had left, at some point I thought I felt pity. Stupid.

But as I have said, to the snatcher's strategic delight, I was high and bloated in the mind, and with the friend's incessant laughing and laughing and story telling, there was just no way the thought that something was up - especially during that moment the polo pendejo dude intentionally tapped and moved my leg away in search for his missing 20 peso bill, which in the first place, wasn't missing- nothing and no one gave me the slightest hint that the stout dude beside me was busy freeing up my aged cellphone from my right pant pocket.

To be continued...