While eating lunch in the callroom one day some weird muzak suddenly blared out seemingly from nowhere. “What the fuck is that?!?” JD shrilly screamed (actually he just monotonically asked, “ano yun?”). “Is that a ring tone?” I asked. After the muzak went on and on we discovered in chagrin that the annoying music is coming from the ceiling. Specifically, from a speaker of the newly-installed hospital-wide paging system! Two nights ago while walking at around 10 pm along the hospital corridors the paging system suddenly caterwauled with Gary Valenciano’s “Natutulog Ba Ang Diyos?” I suggest they stop playing these kinds of songs, because no matter how inspirational these sorts may be if I am bedridden and I have GBC (Generalized Body Cancer) and I hear it I would probably weep and extubate myself. Surely there is no such thing as Generalized Body Cancer, but you probably get the point. Side note: TT and I have been making up a list of new diagnoses we, errr, invented, and the list is getting longer. Other diseases in our own ICD: Fatal Carotenemia, for the unexplained fatal yellowness of a patient who died a few months ago, and Tachycardia Gravidarum, for the rapid heart rates of pregnant patients.

The paging system reminds me of my task in Grade 6 to go to the microphone at 3 pm daily along with RBTDS and Jojapatmoju and pray the 3 o’clock habit in the paging system for the entire school to hear. It has been a daily task and I don’t know what happened one afternoon, for as I was speaking in the microphone I suddenly remembered something hilarious and what I said in the paging system was this: Holy God, Holy Might God, Holy Immortal God, Holy Immortal…. Holy… Hee-hee-hee… Holy…. Hee-hee-hee-haa-haaaaa…. HAA HAAA HAAAA!!!

I just couldn’t contain myself. Lethal joker gas, I know. Blasphemous and all, but I think what I recalled at that time was what my cousin Cuz had told me a few days before—that when some of her classmates pray the 3 o’clock habit what they would say was: Holy Mouse, Holy Mighty Mouse, Holy Immortal Mouse… How evil, but the very thought that I couldn’t laugh at that moment made the lame joke hilarious. And then there was the notorious incident that involved a classmate who refused to stand up one day to pray the 3 o’clock habit. After being prodded and coerced she finally conceded, stood up, and revealed a huge pool of brown crap dripping from her butt. Since then she has been nicknamed “3 o’clock habit”, ie, “Hoy kasali ba si 3 o’clock habit sa tinikling?”

For some reason that incident didn’t make anyone stop me from doing the task, but by the 3rd time I giggled and moronically laughed at the microphone it was the dungeon for me.

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