Lately my cell phone and I have been sleeping in separate rooms since it started taking, at all hours of the day or night and from all sorts of experts, every means and method of battling belly fat (the power breakfast that incinerates it), apart from other health tricks (a 10-second colon cleanse). All that vital information can wait; my sleep can’t.
And until I’m able to figure out how to manage such things, my cell phone and I, as sometimes happens in relationships, could use some space, if only at bedtime.
How did it all start?
Well, all I did was wonder— wonder if there was indeed some way other than liposuction, and Googled it. Suddenly, a deluge of information, and it hasn’t stopped since.
Today the first e-mail came again at 1:55 a.m., proclaiming the benefits of turmeric when it is combined with vitamin C. Another rapidly followed: turmeric and CoQ10. The next warned me of bananas and other fruits.
I’d have found something useful—Five Stretches That Make You Look 10 Years Younger (pictures enclosed), all done in five minutes—if only I could open it.
But just as well; in the end, I’m sure, I’ll be advised to buy DVDs or something.
Marketing ploy
After two weeks, however, I received what has to be the strangest marketing ploy yet— an apology from the company behind the information barrage. They were apologizing for having failed to get a single order from me. For that they said I was entitled to an apology gift, not really a gift but something to be had at terrific discounts on my first and subsequent orders.
The next avalanche swamped me with information about age spots, aching joints, and a super breakfast guaranteed to lose flab. They certainly had me well-profiled, but still I’ve managed to hold out.
Anyway, I have come to the conclusion that the only way to remove belly fat, still, is by liposuction, and I’m not ever going there.
Now and then I still get sucked into opening e-mails on the urgings of my cell phone, which can’t tell between wanted and unwanted e-mails.
Each time I succumb, after what seems longer than the promised “two minutes of your time,” I get the inevitable offer for exotic pills at reduced prices, at no shipping cost, with money-back guarantee, etc., if the magic doesn’t work as promised.
The other day I thought I’d quickly share what I had learned so far with my best-friend cousin, Ninit, with whom I share practically everything including belly fat.
I had hardly started on the subject when she asked, “Hey, you’re not exactly the right person to tell me how to get rid of belly fat, are you?” We both laughed, jiggling around our former waists. That’s what best friends are for, I suppose.
Incomplete
Come to think of it, a cell phone comes pretty close to being a best friend itself. It shares everything with me and remembers what I forget. It’s a storehouse of memories, a sort of portable buddy and more.
To my husband, an iPhone has become an indispensable information and communication tool. He even writes on it in the car.
To me, among other things, it’s a toy with which I play solitaire when caught in traffic.
In the wrong hands it can be a potential weapon, but it has also proved to be our salvation during emergencies. Whatever else it may be, it has become an indispensable device of modern life.
Being without it, whether lost or just left at home, is to me almost as incapacitating as not having Lani, our lone kasambahay around, say, when she goes on her bimonthly days-off.
Vergel and I were surprised to discover, after we each lost our cell phones that, without it we both felt incomplete. It’s the assurance a cell phone gives us of instant connectivity to loved ones, as well as the rest of the world we cannot be without.
When Vergel realized his iPhone had slipped out his pocket in a cab in his rush to his tennis match, he lost his bearings for a while—and the match, too. He called me from a friend’s phone to let me know. As soon as he got home, bathed, and changed, he went to Globe to report the loss.
At Globe, as luck would have it, Yanie, the girl from which he got his phone, only a few months ago, recognized him. “Hi, Sir, ’di nyo kasama si Ma’am?”
iCloud
She also knew about the phone I lost to a snatcher, the reason that made Vergel pass on his Samsung Note 5 (the model before self-burning 7) to me and got his iPhone.
She quickly took over, called his number, and, discovering the phone was still on, went to iCloud and showed him how to track it. After a quick supper, Vergel launched his operation.
It was a great rewarding adventure. With two iPhones being worked by his daughter Tracy, one for tracking, the other for mapping, she and Vergel and our driver tracked the phone inside the same cab Vergel took on a short run from Legazpi Village to Salcedo.
They found it parked along Boni Avenue, Mandaluyong. Vergel tapped on the driver’s window. The driver looked shocked and speechless as any wanted man caught might have.
Once he regained some composure, he began telling a confused story of how he intended to return the phone. All the same, Vergel gave him a little reward.
A phone lost, with all the memorabilia of pictures, voices and texts in it, is irreplaceable, like a good friend.
