NIGHT OF LOSSES & STUPIDITY

I AM A RECENT victim of burglary on the early dawn of May 2, 2012 where an Acer Aspire laptop and a Sony Cybershot digital camera had been stolen. My wallet with different ID cards and ATM card had been stolen also but had been recovered by me during a search. The thief had been contemplating to steal my black Baikal 35-liter backpack along with its contents but the thief did not push through with it.

That was an incident that had given me goose bumps and a loss that caused me so much stress. Who wasn’t? But I had overcame that and life had to go on, with or without those stolen items. So my life went on with its semi-regimented activities of rising in the morning to work and going home in the evening to claim my bed. In between are the ingredients that justify my existence either as a robot or as a human being.

On the night of May 8, 2012, I decide to be a human being again. It is the fiesta celebration of Mandaue City and I greatly welcomed the chance to celebrate the yearly affair after being invited by a friend who lives in Ouano Street. After two repeats of roast-pig and pork innards servings, I drink glass after glass of strong beer to help digest the food as well as to socialize with other guests.

There comes a time when I held a glass on one hand and a microphone on the other hand. The video karaoke player provided entertainment in the house and I sang to my heart’s delight since it is raining anyway. For more than three hours, I stayed in the house as a guest until I noticed that the night is getting late and vehicle traffic has slackened.

Retaining still the good manners, I bade farewell to my host. I am bringing the Baikal backpack with me and I unfolded its rainfly sheet to protect it from a light shower. Then came a heavy downpour and I parked the motorcycle behind a car. Immediately, I removed my backpack and place it at the back hood of the car and retrieve a windbreaker.

I donned it and went away to the safety of my home seven kilometers away travelling at 20 KPH since visibility is not so clear. As I parked the motorcycle, I noticed a lightness behind my back and I discovered that the backpack was not with me. Oh, Jesus! Not again! Please help me.

I called up my friend to inform him that my bag got left where he last saw me stopping to don the windbreaker. Meanwhile, I sprinted at 50 KPH back towards Ouano Street under the heavy rain but the car was already gone. My friend had also found the car gone when he went to investigate earlier. With nothing more to do, I will just have to report this to the police station as a lost item.

My beloved Baikal 35-liter backpack, which had been with me since April 2009, is finally gone from my hands. It is a regular fixture in my daily activity, much more so with my travels to other places and in my bushcraft jaunts in the mountains. It had been featured in my blog – Warrior Pilgrimage. The good thing about the Baikal is that I am the only one who has this type of bag in Cebu, perhaps the whole Philippines, and this makes it easy to recover from whomever is carrying it.

Inside the Baikal were other items which have endeared to me as well like the Mantrack survival knife, the Sheffield 12-in-1 tool set and the Coleman compass. The Mantrack knife had been with me during my “warrior pilgrimage” years in 2000. It had also been given a review in my blog. The compass had helped me to navigate myself out of lost situations many times while the multi-tool had made tinkering with things easy for me.

The Geoffrey Beene wallet is lost for the second time and gone for good along with my company ID, ATM card, driver’s license, mobile-radio operator’s license, government health-insurance membership ID, government housing-fund membership ID, some old but still relevant IDs and a booklet containing contact numbers. The ATM card, I instantly blocked and rendered it useless for anybody to cash in on the situation.

Among the things that got lost is an emergency cash which I stashed hidden inside the water-bladder compartment; a carabiner; a LED flashlight; two 4-gigabytes USB memory containing very important data; a pair of Kirkland sunglasses with container; a pair of reading glasses; a knife sharpener given by Thomas Moore; assorted keys; a Camp Red special edition patch; 76 pieces Camp Red stickers; and a travel organizer.

Assessing the real value of the whole lot wasn’t that much but the inherent value is so great that it caused me another round of stress in just a matter of days. I could not blame anybody but me along with my stupidity. This growing stress could easily be turned into anger but keeping it contained for long makes me unhealthy just because I have nobody to blame but me.

Writing this in my blog is my way of releasing stress. Well, I have done this stress-release method several times and I feel good after that. But I am also writing this incident to inform people that I am just a human being prone to lapses in judgment. Well, considering that I write this article honestly to accept my weakness, I may consider it also good even if it exposes me to ridicule.

Some can’t understand better my position but others can. I am a Cebu native and we look at things in a different light, even dire ones, and make light of it. Yes, I may initially sulk at the loss but I don’t aim to keep that memory and the emotions that follow as a part of me for the rest of my life. I will release it with a shake of the head and laugh about it. That’s all I can do for now.

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