In The Talented Mr. Ripley Mr. Ripley narrates that if he could only get a giant eraser he would erase a bunch of stuff from his life (he said this more elegantly than “a bunch of stuff”) starting with borrowing a university coat that led to the events that ended with him slicing Dickie’s face with a sagwan. 

File under: low serum levels of fluoxetine, but I wouldn’t want a bleeping eraser right now, what I want want want is a massive all-powerful time-travelling computer virus to erase… come to think of it, I still haven’t decided what bits of my life I would like to erase. That point should be a defining moment, something that is not only really, really crappy, but one which has led to a downstream egress of really horrible events. My mother leading the assassination of our evil, beloved cat Smi ten years ago is really ghastly, but other than damaging me psychologically and making me always check if that black cat in Taft or in the ambulance parking lot is the fifteen-year old Smi who has apparently escaped death, that horrible event has not really… cascaded, ie, if I erased that event I would still be crazy.

Henceforth whereas I would like to erase my whole life (drama!), I have narrowed the contenders for Bleeping Moments I’d Rather Erase to two. I don’t give a crap if deleting those would cause some time-space paradox hypertime overdrive whatever, I want them deleted. DELEEEEETED!

In 1997 I still haven’t decided if I would attend Ateneo, UP, La Salle, or UST. The courses I got accepted in in the last three were potential pre-med courses, while the one I got in Ateneo is… Legal Management. Legal Management!!! Ahahahaha. Two days before the deadline of confirmation we just boarded the car from Laguna, drove to the city, and before we knew it we were in C5. “Anong school meron na on-the-way?” I asked. “UP or Ateneo,” driver said. “Anong mangyayari sakin pag nag-Legal Management ako?” I asked. “Lawyer siguro, di ba ganun pag may salitang ‘legal’ ” Mum said. “Wala akong alam dyan, sige, UP siguro,” I said as we drove directly to UP OUR.

Mum: Wake-up, let us submit your papers.

Me: Ayoko. AYOKONG MAG-COLLEGE!!!!

One day in the early months of first year college I woke up at 3 am, rode the jeep from the Kalayaan Dorm to the QC circle, and along with hundreds of ROTC cadets started an Alay-Lakad Walk Crap in file. It was still quite dark. Maybe I’m only adding now in my memory that as we walked high-ranking people were poking us with bayonets, what I’m sure though is that at certain points someone would scream some command something and we would all need to run—RUN!!!—without disrupting the formation/file/whatever crap you call it. My lungs were quite healthy then, but my gasping mounted when I saw… Mapua. We walked/ran/whined/crapped the crap from QC to the U-Belt. Why do I want to erase that horrible but seemingly inconsequential non-event you dare ask? It may be inconsequential in the greater scheme of things, yes, but I want to erase it just so I could replace it with another memory, ie, one where I was carrying a blowtorch and I blowtorched to hell the whole damn event!!!! Blowtorch can be replaced by missile launcher, whichever is available. File under: Possible evidence expert witness psychologists would look into if I get into trouble in the future.