Of Fixers and HIV

**There are things that make your problems less worthwhile.

This sweet talking fixer raised hell for me this morning when I went to have my passport renewed. It's a long story, and I won't tell much about it because I probably won't hear the end of it. So I won't. But it was goddam hell in Pasay City that day; the paper work and the commute, well, those are fun compared to what I'm actually furious about. And to think those were what kept me from having my passport renewed in the first place.

Motherfucking third world negro actually got me to pay P1,700 for his travel agency's services, when it would only cost me P1200 to have it processed by the goddamn government. And these two offices are just a few feet away from each other. So you'd understand how my shit boils with this recollection, and my fingers are suddenly sore from all this enraged typing. That's how angry I am, you know.

And then I went to my sister's to tell them about it.

She, however, had a fresh story of her own. She then went ahead to tell me of this one friend, a 27-year old gay guy, who was just recently diagnosed of having full blown AIDS. His tuberculosis, they thought they cured that, came back with a vengeance and it evolved into pneumonia. And it was the kind of pneumonia that's associated with HIV positive people. And he has that kind of pneumonia because he is HIV positive. But that was two weeks back; it has blown to such inoperable proportions since then.

My problems almost went away after she told me that. In retrospect, I have no real reason to bitch fit about such regular things as scam artists when people my age are dying elsewhere. Their lives are suddenly so truncated to a screeching halt that they may not have time to get themselves scammed.