Wonder of wonders! I don't miss Mabel

It’s been a week since Mabel Sun Fon eloped with a grumpy taxi driver.

She was Chinese; the driver, Filipino. I’m already making a guess what nationality the law might bestow their offspring if their unplanned union is blessed: Tsinoy ringtone, if there is such a thing.

Also, their relationship will not last. You see, I was with Mabel when she ran away with the guy who I saw has another Mabel. It was a Nokia 1200. Nagpapamaroto sa ruhang suba.

A week is too short a time to erase from memory the good times Mabel and I had when we were still together. Our MU, I’d like you to know, went for over a year, and I am sure that if she can only express her mind she will say the same. She’s gone, though, and I also wonder if the driver is treating her well. Or has he sold her? Has he bartered her for a hipper version? I don’t know.

Honestly, my despair at Mabel’s disappearance lasted for only a day. I told myself: “Hey, Kulas, life doesn’t revolve around only one Mabel. They are aplenty in Quiapo and in Greenhills. In fact, with a slightly bigger budget, you can acquire a sexier replacement.”

Of course, I refused to give in to the temptation of replacing Mabel. I mean, I will dishonor her memory if I get another ‘companion’ even while the nine-day period of mourning hasn’t yet passed. “Give me time to grieve,” my right ear lobe excoriated the temptation of the left.

So, I have not replaced Mabel. I hope she knew of and appreciate my dogged loyalty to her.

Meanwhile, with her permanent absence, I reverted to using the old, reliable fixed-line phone in the office. I said “old” because I think this gadget has seen better days since its introduction during “pistaym”. That was, when, during the American Occupation?

You know how this phone looks. It’s big. It’s black like a crow, and it’s connected to a wall by a telephone wire that could strangle you if you are lying to the person you are talking with on the other end.

This fixed-line telephone is so unlike Mabel. It throws tantrums every now and then, just like today when I called up a friend and the gadget simply refused to cooperate. When I raised it and dialed the number, initially, I heard it sneeze. Z . . . z. . . z . . . z. No dial tone.

I tinkered with the wire attached to the phone’s butt and found it loose. I tightened it shut and dialed again. Still, I didn’t hear a sound except for a light, subdued sneeze. My phone has a cold, I thought.

I went to the wall where a small triangular cream box houses the other end of the wire joined to a much fatter wire which runs to thousands of kilometer—underground and above ground—all over Metro Manila and its suburbs. Nothing’s wrong there as far as my non-technical eye can see. I just fingered it.

And again, I dialed. It worked this time and I heard the phone’s friend was ringing. A hand picked it up. I said, “Hello . . . can I please . . . .”

The mouth of the body to which the hand was attached, responded, “Hello . . . sorry. Wrong number.” and slammed the phone down. Click.

Is there a ‘wrong’ number? I wanted to know because if there is, then we should avoid using that ‘wrong’ number.

(Later in the evening, I asked my daughter Lilac, the mathematician in the house, who said there is none as all numbers, except zero, are perfect. “But there’s such a thing as “not the number of your friend,” she told me. I am old. I remember that I dialed the number of the electric company.)

I finally got a connection after much struggle. Oh, I almost forgot to say that while I was talking to my friend, there were intermittent voices that crossed our line and distracted our conversation.

A voice I heard said, “Maligo ka na. Parating na ako,” while another was, I think, a bettor shouting to a collector: “Todohan mo na si Angela’s Star”, obviously a horse’s name.

Mabel did not do this to me: crossing and interrupting my phone conversation with static and garbage talk. This fixed-line phone, however, just did that I wondered if I have an unsettled debt with the telephone company that it decided to terrorize me.

Now I have recovered from the initial shock of being abandoned by a mobile phone.

In fact, apart from freeing my hands for other not-so-mundane chores (it’s only now the ubiquitous cigarette, lighter and writing pen that my hands are fumbling with), Mabel’s departure forces me to wake up early so I can go to the office to receive and make calls. This increased my productivity, but not the money in my wallet. Not yet. But I hope that comes soon with the savings I will earn from reduced telephone bills.

I know of some people who sleep with their mobile phones on, although they set them in silent mode. They even tuck their phones inside their underwear when going to the toilet, afraid to miss the telephone company’s constant egging for a special ring tone, or new wallpaper. That’s how inseparable humans and gadget have become, so that when someone loses a mobile phone, they can’t eat. In fact, they don’t eat at all to save money to be able to quickly buy a replacement. Slaves, these people are, of mobile phones.

In my case, even during the time that Mabel was still around, I didn’t bring her everywhere; didn’t develop a special, inseparable relationship with her. For example, I turn her off in meetings, in the church, in the movie house. Perhaps, that’s why I lost her.

And perhaps why, wonder of wonders, I don’t miss her.

“Hello, Mabel. Tell your driver he can have you till hell freezes over. Isaksak ka kamo sa baga niya. Bye.”