Five Thirsty

Thursday afternoon I receive a text message: 

"Pare, can we move our meeting to Monday night?  Something came up."

So said my techie friend.  I was supposed to show him a search engine that we developed for our software.  Problem with it is that, after so many transactions, it slows down to tortoise proportions and the user runs the risk of his/her pc completely hanging.

"Oh well" I said to myself.  I guess, I was meant to go home early.  "But why?" I asked myself.  "There isn’t much to do at home except play dopewars and worry over strategies.  

It was during these thoughts, that another text message arrives.  "Leej, Linus, Euge, Five Thirsty, Ortigas area".   My reply was instantenous "GAME ON." It had been a particularly hard day and was really rarin’ for a diversion.  

The night provided a lot of dejavu moments.  They set it at Metrowalk, well who am I to complain, I can crawl home if I had to from that place.   At anyrate, seven of us turned up and to my surprise, my techie friend arrived as well.  It was good to see the other guys.  Irwin, our resident graphic artist, whose wife just recently gave birth; Paul, the operations guru (he’s been doing it since the 1990’s) and who really looks like that chinese guy in Mythbusters, and Chel, Sofdev Master for a company where we all came from.   These three can be classified as the conscience of the group. As the initial four (including me) love to fencesit and fall off the wrong side of the fence from time to time.  

Weird that Chino would choose Aruba and weirder still was Leej, coming in a pair of shorts, successfully preventing us from staying inside.  Much weirder still was finding myself in the exact seat and table which had both fond and sad memories for me.  "Sigh, must the past put a damper on a supposedly happy night?"  I silently said to myself.  I dared not voice my melancholic moment, lest the guys get a whiff of it and it be the topic of the night.  Anyway, life must go on.  Limbo, is an unhealthy place to check in. 

No, I was content to hear of their adventures.  Highly amused by their applause and pronouncements of "Well Done God!" each time a babe would pass by and just to be happy to be among friends.  

They couldn’t stop ribbing me about the Boracay trip they just recently went to.  I was supposed to join them but parental duties gave a call to action and my number one priority will always be my kids, hence I had to decline.  A decision that they couldn’t stop teasing me with as apparently, Cebu Pacific gave them a free one way ticket that they can use for next year.  Oh well, no regrets.  

Bella calls and asks how I am.  I told her I was out with friends, that I miss them both and wished her and Igor a goodnight.    Anyway, after six beers, I was ready to call it a night.  For some reason, the beer did not agree with me that night.  But still we decided to eat at Iceberg.  Got me a philly cheesesteak sandwich and felt much better.  

Got home 12am and immediately drifted off to sleep.  Drunk and happily oblivious to the torments of my thoughts.