Cruisin'

For the second year now, January is the month I consider the most expensive after December. It is when I have my car registered at LTO and its maintenance done. That is not mentioning the fact that this is also the time when I shop for gifts for those I promised presents last Christmas.

Though the car registration still gave me the same pain I have when I look at the latest pair of shoes that I have to postpone buying again, I actually remember feeling joy after the 45-minute process was over (Yes. It took me less than an hour to do that at the LTO branch along Shaw Blvd, where the old Ynares Gym used to be).

The maintenance was another story. 

I was advised by a nearby garage that I would need to cough up 14000 pesos for all the fixes. But any car owner knows that the truth of the matter is only half of what these commercial garage people are saying. So, I paid my trusted mechanic a visit instead. It turned out, the garage had asked 10000 peso more.

My mechanic does not have a decent place to work on the car. I park mine right in front of his house, and that's it, he does his thing. You can just imagine how inconvenient it is for him, for me, for his neighbors and for the people passing by. However, it seems everyone has gotten used to it. They do not mind the hassle.

I do, though. That's why I always try to go by other garages before I finally decide to go to him.

Depending on what I need to have done on my car, I wait for hours, sometimes all day. I sit at a store across from his house, as that is the only place I could wait on him. The store sells all kinds of food, so there, I could have breakfast, lunch, and thankfully, I do not go all the way to dinner.

But the last time I went there, I did something out of the ordinary. After having my power lunch at the store (Knowing that I would have to wait all day), as usual, I decided to go around the place. This was something I hadn't really done though I'd already been there several times. I had never really bothered exploring. So, this time,  I did.

I went around and found this interesting dock by the river. People cross toward the other bank, in another city, on a small boat that can sit about 20 to 30 people. Getting to the other side does not really take more than 5 minutes, and it is a very convenient and fast way of getting to that area. The sight is already stunning as it is, and I wonder how more beautiful it could have been if it were cleaner...

This dock has a shed with benches for passengers to wait on, so I stayed there the whole afternoon till sunset, listening to about 5 elderly talk about how everything used to be. One shared how he used to serenade different girls every night to woo them. He even sang to everyone listening to his story, and boy could he sing well! If not for the text message I received from my mechanic, I would have taken a late afternoon nap with that voice.

It was a great day, what with my car now well-maintained, and having spent time at that dock with people that still remember how the river used to be young. It was the only time I forgot about how expensive January is.