Stop the world, I have to get off

Five little girls stand in a row, dressed in navy blue shorts and T-shirts, both embroidered with last names and initials. (Since I intend to send my children to St. Theresa’s College one day, I also intend to marry a man whose last name is either Sy or Go. Woe to the woman who marries my brother. May your fingers be nimble and your children few.)

Quiz day for PE is a strange sight: A small gym with 30 pigtailed second-graders sitting on the floor, watching the unfortunate five who stand with eyes blindfolded.

"Left!" Teacher barks. Four little girls turn left. One little girl stands with quivering knees and shifts from one white-sneakered foot to the other. Finally, she turns right.

"Right!" Four little girls turn right. One little girl turns right, then left, then right again. Confused, she stands still and then turns left.

The directions come faster now. "Left! Right! Left-right-left-left-left!"

"Blindfolds off!" Five little girls rip off blindfolds and find themselves blinking in the afternoon light. Four find themselves facing the class, and triumphant grins break out on their perspiring faces. One little girl finds herself facing a grim teacher.

"One more time, Patricia."

There are people who have problems reading Shakespeare, others who steer clear of anything with four legs and a tail, and still those who find themselves in a cold sweat whenever they’re faced with the possibility of taking Math 54.

Me, I avoid anything that requires delineating left from right.

When we went to Malaysia, everyone was having trouble getting used to the fact that cars were driven on the other side of the road. To cross the street, instead of looking left first, they had to look right – a shift that almost led to the untimely demise of several enterprising Filipino college students.

I, on the other hand, had no problems. Since I never know where left is, my look-that-way-then-this-way-then-that-way-again formula is much more effective.

My directional incapacity extends not only to left and right, but to an inability to recall routes and roads. I graduated from high school before I figured out how to navigate the 10-minute ride from STC to my house. I’ve been in UP for three years and I still find myself going down from an Ikot jeep the same place I got in. Then I’d sheepishly get into the next jeep (making sure, of course, that the driver of the previous one had up and gone).

I believe it is a legitimate handicap – good enough reason to use the more visible bathrooms for the physically handicapped: I can’t find my way to the ladies’ room. I’ve found myself in elevators and fire exits looking for the restroom.

It’s not just an inability to remember directions. There seems to be something wrong with my perception of solid objects – it just isn’t there. In Thailand, I was in the middle of a huge hall waiting for the judge’s announcement. When word came that the decision was out, I raced out of the room to drag my teammates back in. Feeling like Ally McBeal in my pinstriped pants, I sprinted out the open doors, only to find myself making very close aquaintance with a solid wall of glass. Tinted glass. I bruised my nose, popped my lip, but the sudden shock of pain couldn’t compare to hearing the most excruciating sound in the world: The sound of dozens of people from all over Asia muffling laughter behind their palms.

I like to think my clumsiness is a leftover from my tomboy days (the times when I clomped around in leather hiking boots and had my overprotective brother desperate enough to buy me tank tops).

Back in high school, I got lucky enough to go to Singapore for the junior world tournament. In an attempt to intimidate the competition, I packed a pair of killer heels along with my sneakers. The sneakers died a natural death after getting soaked in the rain, and I was left tottering for days around the city in black three-inch heels. The gods took pity on the poor child with aching insteps, and I finally found a store I could afford. When I walked out the mall, I glowed with the fierce hot surge of victory: My feet were in the coolest pair of blue sneakers this side of Asia.

So there I was, in the middle of a gorgeous Singapore park, hopping from foot to foot, skipping in circles around my teammates, shrieking "I’m not in heels!" Then I found myself tripping over a shoelace, soaring through the air while executing a lovely little backflip. For a moment, I heard the singing of angelic voices, until my journey through celestial heights ended in an undignified landing on the cold, cold grass, spread-eagled under the Singapore moon. My darling teammates, in the spirit of friendship, walked quickly away and pretended not to know me.

Sometimes even I surprise myself. I spend feverish minutes looking for a contact lens that’s already in my eye, and find both remote control and cell phone in the refrigerator. I’ve gone round and round the Elliptical Circle in search of Mindanao Avenue (which apparently isn’t there) and have caused friends to bolt when I start my "Um-so-can-I-get-a-ride-home" routine.

Someday, when I’m rich, famous, and have saved the world, I’ll have 1,000 pairs of contact lenses in my room and a driver with a double degree in geography and urban management. I’ll have three personal assistants and James-Bond type gadgets to beep warnings when there are glass walls masquerading as open air. Then if worse comes to worse and I still trip down escalators, I’ll already be so popular that people will rush down to trip after me.

Vengeance for the teary-eyed little girl who faced left when teacher wanted right.

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