All the "Grave" Stuff I Should've Learned in Kindergarten

My throat is itchy. For the past few days, I’ve been coughing like hell without giving out any phlegm. It even sounds like a fake cough. I’ve never had it before—well, at least not that I remember. Don’t they say that when your hands are itching, then it must mean you’ll be holding a large sum of money soon? Hmmm…so I must be in danger of uttering a pretty huge truth soon, eh? Nah. I keep my truths and lies in check. And I always face their consequences responsibly. It just turns out that both of ‘em—truths and lies—can get you into deep s**t. *coughs* There goes the imaginary phlegm again. I wonder when this’ll ever end. We’ve been singing for Theater 111 (Voice for Theater, under the tutelage of the great Sir Lou), and I gotta get rid of my coughing spell PRONTO. Thing is, I don’t take any meds. I’m not a fan of legal drugs, except for the trusty sour United Home Ascorbic Acid, and doses of Iterax and Claritin for my allergies. I abhor everything else. I prefer curing myself in more natural ways, not that I’m an herbal expert or anything. Water. That’s probably the only substance that you can’t not have too much of—well, unless we’re talking about drowning. “Drink at least six to eight glasses of water a day,” so they say. Robert Fulghum should’ve included that advice in those things he listed down for All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. People may live a lot longer if they just live by this particular creed. My Psychology101 (General Psychology) professor (the “salacious transgender psychologist of the Palma Hall Annex” according to his—or her—own words), it’s recently been discovered that people have been dying mostly because of cancer, heart diseases, and the like, all of them brought about by our 21^st Century lifestyles. Whereas in the past, people died because of ignorance: Manuel Quezon lost to tuberculosis, Apolinario Mabini died of cholera, and Francis Bacon contracted a fatal case of pneumonia because he was trying to preserve meat with snow. Those were diseases that couldn’t be cured simply because there were no cures yet. At present, anyone can get down with these sicknesses, but die of something else, like, say, cancer or aids. You could be smoking like a chimney (and die even before the months Doc gave you were through), or you could’ve had sex with a total stranger (unfortunately, even the hottest and most gorgeous of people are not exempt from the HIV virus), or you could’ve had eaten too much of something (I’m guessing McDonald’s), or you could’ve had too, too much coffee (ouch). This way, you can die at your own hands. We are all committing a “gradual suicide.” Dead men walking. I remember this ultra-cool music video wherein the man could see the total remaining hours, minutes, and seconds of living on people’s foreheads (and on tummies, too, so he could tell if a woman was pregnant—cute). I guess each of us has a running countdown stamped on the forehead. I mean, the best thing that you can do is to die happy. Now that is our purpose in life, Mr. Rick Warren.

I was on my way to the dorm the other day when I encountered probably the sixth of those kids trying to sell you a P100-peso pen with a—tadah!—calendar. Of course, they say that you’d be doing humanity a huge favor if you bought that freak of a pen. I already heard the full-length pitch when I gave a boy the chance to at least deliver his speech. That was late last year. So naturally, I wasn’t eager to hear another one. I mean, a hundred bucks can already buy you a ticket to an indie at the Film Center, y’know. And so the girl was like, “Uhm, Ma’am, can I take just a minute of your time?” And I smiled and said, “Sorry a, nagmamadali ako.” I walked away, thinking that she should’ve said, “may” instead of “can.” But then I thought about her minute. A minute. Anything can happen in a minute. Somebody could be born in a minute, not knowing how much s**t he/she is in for. Then again, somebody could be dead in a minute just because he/she didn’t have a hundred bucks to spare for a fever. And that poor girl was asking for a minute? F**k your minute, kid, and go get a life before the Grim Reaper comes at yah. We’re all on the run, anyway.