Life as AFAC

I hate prank callers. In 2005 I was featured on tv for my face painting biz and shortly after, in a national daily for my bags. Both succeeded in coaxing me to give my contact numbers to get business prospects. Gosh, that was a mistake. My phone won’t stop ringing, but mostly from horny losers who were more interested in me than my biz. I hate it because I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking it’s from my mom or friend in trouble only to hear lonely OFWs from Oman, Dubai and Saudi who saw the segment on TFC (The Filipino Channel) and want to be “friends”. Then I’d get really obscene texts and calls to the point that I complained to the National Telecoms Commission but they said to block a phone, the process takes so long and the caller can easily get a new sim. Plus the guy was asking for kotong to hasten the process. I said forget it. I just left my phone at home. But I can’t do that forever because I need my phone for work. Sometimes I would take the call and leave the phone on the table so the prank caller’s load will get used up. Good for him!
It took about two months before the prank callers stopped, then after a few moments of silence I’d wake up at 530am again with rings and beeps. The show rerun! It had about four reruns from 2005 to 2006 and it was just crazy. Maybe this is my karma. When we were bored as kids we would look out the window and copy telephone numbers on our neighbors’ signages. Patricularly this shop called Crown Shell. Nothing was airconditioned then and we could see the secretary on the desk from our window. My siblings and I would take turns dialling, while the rest of us would look out the window and see her pick up the phone and mouth “hello?” Then we would slam the phone. Then do it again. I don’t know why that was so much fun for us then. We would also pick a number from the yellow pages and order elaborately from a batchoyan and when they say “Para sa diin?” (For which address?) we’d say “Para sa ido!” (For a dog) and slam the phone. We’d keep laughing and laughing and that must be really fun ‘coz our nanays (nanny) would play along. Thank God Nintendo and Gameboy was soon invented.
So it must be payback time now. But how come I’m the one paying for all our faults? My siblings never got this much prank calls. Good thing there were a couple of nice texts too, from moms who said I inspired them to keep supporting their artist kids. One mom in particular, Susan, had a daughter in UST fine arts advertising (my same univ, same course) in her first year. She wanted her girl to quit on the second sem because times were hard and she felt her daughter will starve to death with a course like that. Then she saw me on tv and I didn’t look like I’m starving (yeah I’m fat!) and seem to be living the good life. So she said she’ll allow her daughter to continue with her chosen path. She continued to correspond with me every so often until I flew here and had my globe phone cut. The last time she texted, her daughter Sugar was already in 3rd year college and she was asking my advice how I’d feel if I were her daughter and I was asked to stop school for at least a year because the bread winner son was laid off. Being able to give her comfort and hope made all those prank calls worth it. Sort of. Not!
Since last week I’ve been getting prank texts and calls on my Smart phone. Last night my phone kept ringing, and the first time, I answered it thinking twas mhy mom (roaming phones don’t show numbers). The other party hung up. Then it kept ringing and ringing again and I thought, it may be an important call or the other party would stop calling. Besides, my Smart phone is unlisted so I must know this person. I answered it and I got a male squeaking, “h-hello?” Dammit I turned my phone off. That b*****d just cost me over a hundred bucks! Turned out he was my ex-neighbor who got my number from another neighbor. And he knew I was abroad!! How inconsiderate. He’s the barkada of my neighbor who they say had a crush on me for the longest time (not my type). And he confessed through a slew of texts that he also had a crush on me since he met me. He’s funny and all but again, not my type. (Remember Carl’s Pope Palpatine theory?)
My gorgeous friend Claire once declared, “I am not single by choice. I am single for lack of good choices.” Bravo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 7:48 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.