There's a standard phrase that Luz and I say out loud before we (frantically) leave the room in the mornings.
"Money, phone, key."
It's our checklist of the things that we should not leave behind. Sometimes, there are variants of this. Mostly, additional things like "flash disk", "MRT card", "handkerchief". But the core three are the staple ones. It would be such a day's cumbersome complication if one is left behind.
I remember Tago has a good version of this during travelling. But Tago, being himself, calls it "Valuability check!" - which is like a cue for us to ascertain the current location of wallets, cameras, cellphones.
The whole checklist is a good conceptual attempt, in theory. Not necessarily fool-proof, though. Especially in the case of me and my esteemed roommate. Maybe it's because we're often in a hurry to leave. There's something about the MRT - fifteen minutes can sometimes mean a difference of easily getting on the first train or shoving your way just to get into the third.
We're experts in cutting it close. It is like bluffing our ways to our 8 am call time. But you have to give us a little credit. From the Shaw station, we go our separate ways and wave our goodbyes after inserting our tickets in the platform. Luz goes northbound to QC, and I go southbound to Makati. Commuting is bound to leave you a little frazzled and forgetful.
Our friend's sister-in-law - whom we haven't met personally - lives one floor up from us. She knows us, though. As a matter of fact (but not of pride), we're known as the two girls who always forgets something and comes back up into the elevator to get it.
Once we were almost at the village gate before we figured out what we forgot and had to retrace our steps back to our building. Also, it's not unusual to find me waiting for the elevator while putting on earrings, wristwatch, bracelet. It's efficient use of slack time, you've got to admit.
So this morning, I went over the ritual. I paused at the door's threshold and reminded myself out loud. "Money, phone, key." Mentally making tick marks, I went out and headed out into my thursday.
I decided to blog about this because upon arriving at the office this morning, I found out that - of course - I forgot my phone.
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