A PetiX Life

I think I’ll never drive a car ever again.

I just got over two weeks of non-stop driving and it’s driven me crazy. My girlfriend’s mom came over from Cebu and I’ve had nothing to do but drive a car for her and my girlfriend from Quezon City to Timbuktu. Of course, I had to make some detours to visit my own mom - who incidentally chose to come to Manila from Pangasinan on the same week - and take her places as well. I never imagined before that having these three people in the same place at the same time would be such an overwhelming experience.

On a weekend Saturday, for example, I had to wake up at 7am to take my girlfriend, Niña, to a meeting somewhere in España. After lunch, we headed out to Marikina to visit my mom and my uncle who just flew in from LA.

At about 3pm, we left Marikina with my mom, my uncle and my cousins, who wanted to go shopping in SM North. After dropping off my relatives at SM, I drove Niña home so we could pick up her mom, who wanted her hair done at the UP shopping center. I drove them there and went back to SM to wait for my mom and kin. After an hour waiting at the parking lot, they finally came out of the mall because my cousin, Joy, was throwing up inside and they all wanted to go home. So I took them back all the way to Marikina. I was supposed to rush back to UP to pick up Niña and her mom but they decided to just get a cab back home because I got stuck in traffic.

Of course, my woes didn’t end there. I woke up at 6 the next morning with my head spinning like blown-out tire. I felt terribly woozy and heavy but I had to get up and take Nîña and her mom to Divisoria. That afternoon, I had to rush to Marikina again to see my mom, who was already threatening to disown me for not visiting her while she’s there.

The next day, Monday, I woke up with a sore back and a knife stuck up my chin. My girlfriend was threatening to kill me if I didn’t take her and her mom to the Japanese Embassy, where she was supposed to get a tourist visa. Of course, Niña didn’t have a real knife with her but at 2 in the morning, I just knew that my life was in danger after she gave me such painful stabbing looks. So there I was, driving all the way from Visayas Ave in Quezon City to Roxas Boulevard by 3am.

The rest of the week went by like that and I was shuffling between my regular day job and my new career as a cab driver. I felt like a cab driver because I was running from one place to another where I didn’t even want to go, and like any good cabbie, I simply took orders and drove away.

But unlike the cab driver, I didn’t get my fare. There was no paying customer for me this past two weeks. I don’t know if you’d consider emotional payment as fare, but if I could probably encash my girlfriend’s hug, her mom’s approving smile and my own mother’s lit-up face, I’d probably be the richest, most exhausted chauffeur in the whole world.

This is not the first time I’m attempting to start and sustain a blog. Everybody on the Internet knows what blogs are and everyone on my neighborhood probably has one. The other day, I asked our regular Taho vendor and he said his blog is almost a year old already. Manang Glo, who does our laundry, also has her own blog where she writes about perfecting the art of pagkukusot. She claims that she’s had her blog for only six months but she’s already getting fan mail all the way from South America and Papua New Guinea. I’ve tried starting my own at least six times in the past year, but I’ve never gone past the third entry.

I can’t imagine how these people find the time to write on their blogs. I’m supposed to be the petiks here, but how come I’m the one who can’t sustain a very petiks activity — writing blogs!? I’m an embarrasment to the Petiks Way.

The best way to explain what a petiks is, is by telling you what a petiks does: Absolutely nothing. A petiks is the master of killing time. When everybody’s busy at work, you’ll find him busy pretending to work. A petiks life is a happy life, not because he does less work — on the contrary he can be more productive — but because he knows how to enjoy time and not let the burdens of his job bring him down.

A PetiX Life, the blog, is dedicated to finding ways of using precious time in the most meaningful and enjoyable manner. Every one has a petiks streak in him. Everyone can be a petiks. Everyone has done a petiks deed in his life, although he may not have realized it before, but now we’re giving it a name. The secret to being a petiks, is knowing you’re one and embracing it wholeheartedly.