Counting Potatoes

My Top 5 Places for Reflection

Yesterday, I found myself counting ants by the window sill, which was not very surprising since it’s been days since I’ve last had an internet connection.. ergo work to do. To pass the time, I would selectively crush some of the ants just so that their orderly lines are disrupted. I know this is sadistic and my little sister would wholeheartedly agree with you on this. The day before yesterday, I was carrying out euthanasia on some mice trapped in the glue trap (thanks to Jumbi’s airgun).

I stopped crushing the poor little things after a while.. After all, how would I feel if a giant finger came out of nowhere and squashed me like a bug? Contented myself with watching the crushed ants drunkenly marching this way and that. Thinking crazy thoughts such as “Where do broken ants go?” or “Do they find their way home?”

It’s amazing how weird your mind gets in the face of total absolute boredom. As I watched heat waves pulsating from the ground outside, I was confronted by some of life’s deepest and perhaps most useless questions - like –

How many chickens get their heads chopped off in a daily basis? For that matter, how many chickens ARE there in the world? 6 billion? 10 billion? Must be quite hard finding the meaning of life when all you’re going to get in life is 45 days..

When we feed our pigs pork, isn’t it cannibalism?

What would happen if I put a rat in our microwave oven?(Been looking for a video of this in Youtube, no success)

How would department store salesladies feel if I followed them around instead of them following me?

What if all the pooh, or jebs, in Metro Manila were routed through an underground pipe system into a big big composting plant? Wouldn’t it solve a significant percentage of our energy problem?

And so on and so forth…

Going back to my blog, have you ever noticed that 90% of our eureka moments or bouts of sudden inspiration happens in only 10% of the places we frequent? The helical structure of the DNA for example was conceived while waiting for a certain plane to take off, the principle of buoyancy in a bath tub, or the law of gravity while slacking off under an apple tree and although I wouldn’t go as far as dreaming of coming up with the equations of the Grand Unifying Theory while watching the water drip into the pail while taking a crap, I can say that most of my, more or less, “brilliant” ideas or craziest questions came to me in one of the following places:

1. Church:

Going to church is like going to a movie with a really bad sound system. Try as I might to understand the word of God or to reflect on the teachings of Christ, the task becomes next to impossible because of the sounds echoing off the walls resulting in nothing more than a incoherent collection of sounds when it reaches my ears.

God forgive me, but I just can’t prevent my mind from wandering off in search of interesting tidbits to chew on… like that girl who has a wedgy in the front row.. or my list of things to do… or where the candle melt goes..

Wouldn’t it be nice if our churches have singing and dancing just like in Sister Act or Fighting Temptations?

2. Bank:

Falling in line at the banks kinda reminds me of the car manufacturing plant I once saw in discovery. Every now and then, the teller would finish with a customer and all the people in the line would move almost always at the same time. There’s one word to describe the people in line: BORED. That’s why every now and then, an old lady would try to strike up a conversation to pass the time, which is quite embarrassing sometimes because once you run out of topics to talk about, the silence can be a bit awkward.

Why don’t we pair up a Starbucks shop with every bank? Or even better, a Jollibee outlet? This way, at least people can munch on something while waiting for their turn. This is also much better than standing around in the eerie silence and whitewashed walls, waiting for your turn, glaring at slow tellers, and generally looking like a lost soul in purgatory.

3. Barber Shop:

Snip Snip… You’re looking straight ahead.. the barber is looking at you.. and you’re racking your brains to find something to say. Why is talking to barbers infinitely harder than talking to taxi drivers? Hmmm… must be the wicked looking scissors in his hand and the fact that a political topic might get well out of hand. Afterall, he might be pro Erap..

This must be the reason why 9 out of 10 people in barber shops have that time-space warp look in their eyes. I often wonder where these people’s minds go.. Do they ponder on their mortality? Do they fantasize? (especially those fidgeting in their chairs). Do they count sheep? (Snip Snip… Baaaahhh!!).. or are they also covertly watching the others in the shop like me? He he..

Imagine if there’s a pole in the barber shop and you have a beer in your hand.. and there’s this young nubile girl dancing her ass off in front.. Wouldn’t that make your trip to the barber more than worthwhile? He he.. then again, the barber might end up cutting my ears off because he was more engrossed in an entirely different set of hair.

4. Mass Transportation:

The best scenario here is when you’re in a jam-packed bus or perhaps the MRT. It’s the end of another working day and you can literally taste the sweat off the person in front of you. The bus jerks when it accelerates and jerks when it stops and men and women alike cannot help but rub against each other all the way to their destinations. Packed like sardines the people might be, but look into their eyes and you’ll see that each and everyone of them is in their own Valhalla. Of course, except the pervs and the likes who are trying their best not to moan. He he

Sometimes, I can’t help but think that the MRT as well as Philippine buses must be modern day Amistads conveying hordes of worker slaves to and from work everyday. Eating to work and working to eat. Too bonetired at the end of the day to even care about the perv humping away at his back.

5. Toilet:

A favourite spot of most for in depth reflection about the deepest questions of life – case in point – did you know that the oceans were formed after 60,000 years of rain? A question posed by our bunso to our sister on one such bout of reflection in the toilet. Then again, maybe it’s just as well. Thinking, after all, is much preferable over concentrating on inhaling the fumes emanating out of your own pooh.

Truth is, it is almost always at the toilet, particularly on the toilet bowl that we are forced to confront our deepest fears, apprehensions, doubts and questions (echoes, white tiles and the inability to do anything else being the catalyst of thought). I’ll bet this is where Hitler came up with his idea to slaughter those of the impure race and later on to take his own life. I’ll bet this is where Rizal polished his story plots on El Fili and Noli mi Tangere and where Andres Bonifacio came up with the idea of revolution and the KKK. Some public toilets even have a running forum on its walls.

So there you go, my top 5 places for unlocking the mysteries of life. What’s yours?:)

	My Top 5 Places for Reflection