"I'm leaving on a..." ooppss!

We had a little comedy-drama today. ^_^

Josemari and Millet flew to Manila early this morning. After the grand send off at the airport, we all trooped to Tita Mary's house to have breakfast-lunch-merienda. Oh yeah. This is the Philippines, after all. Such things (marathon eating) are not unheard of.

After lunch, it was time for Rosemarie to leave for Cebu as her flight to Canada departs from the Mactan International Airport.



As Rose was having an emotional moment saying goodbye to her beloved Papa, the rest of us were busy finishing up our desserts of dinuldog, chocolate cake, pichi-pichi, fried saba, butong, budbud kabog, cassava pudding, shakoy, biko, fresh fruits like mangoes, bananas, tambis... (did we really have ALL that? well...uh... yes.) O_O

At one:ten pm we all moved out in different vehicles on our way to the pier to send off Rose as she was going to take the Weesam Oceanjet Fastcraft bound for Cebu with a twenty minute stop-over in Bohol. As I was pulling out of the driveway, I saw her big box and her black suitcase being loaded by Tito Arnold's boy helper on to the back of Tito Arnold's EasyRide pick-up truck. Then off we all sped to the pier.

To the pier!

Yes. When we got to the pier, several kargadors immediately gathered around the back of my car, eager to carry any cargo or luggage we might have. I smugly told them, "Wala mi karga." (There is no cargo.) When we got out of the car, one of my relatives wailed, "Wala man ang karga!" (There is no cargo!) Say what??!! What a world of difference a punctuation mark and a tone of voice makes in what would otherwise be two identical sentences.

It turned out the EasyRide carrying Rose's luggage and box had not arrived yet. We were all quite stunned. And frozen. Even if the driver was very slow, still the EasyRide should have been at the pier already. Rosemarie's eyebrows were like totally knitted in kilay 2008 configuration. The equivalent emoticon would perhaps be >_<. We speculated: Maybe they thought the box was for them to take home, their home?! Someone remembered, "Ay, the driver is just learning how to drive" and an EasyRide, contrary to its name, is not that easy to drive, not being automatic. Could they have had a flat tire? Ad infinitum... Or could it be that the driver thought Rosemarie was going to take the airplane to Manila?? As in, that would be the logical route for someone going abroad. And in all our emotional dramatic goodbyes, we all forgot to tell the driver of the EasyRide that Rose was actually flying out of the country from the international airport in CEBU, hello! Rose said: "Shouldn't someone follow the EasyRide...?" Maybe because I am so used to responding quickly in emergency situations, and this qualified as an emergency as the Weesam Fastcraft to Cebu was due to depart in a few minutes, I jumped into my car and sped off to pursue the wayward EasyRide. Not a very brilliant idea as I'm not the fastest driver or the craftiest road traffic maneuverer. And so to the airport I went and indeed the EasyRide was there, the driver and his passengers unknowing of the drama currently ongoing at the pier. And so the luggage and the box were transferred to my car with haste and to make a long story short, Rose and her luggage were reunited and traveled together to Cebu aboard the Weesam Fast Craft, whose departure was delayed for a bit as my other relatives had prevailed upon the sea authorities to wait for the missing luggage. All these because someone forgot to inform the driver exactly what route Rose was taking. The driver innocently thought that she was "...leaving on a jetplane..."