Butchoy vibes: How a storm tripped me

MANILA, Philippines - I tripped and it wasn’t even a typhoon yet. Lame.” Me to myself over and over as I shook my head and bloodily walked away from the tree.

I am writing this a month after the actual mishap, June 16. It was a Saturday afternoon, a day common sense came to me in the form of an ugly gash on my forearm. Allow me now to retrace my gross steps.

That day, I had just come from both a pizza lunch in The Fort and another meeting nearby, which offered pizza again. I had friends waiting, though, so I bounced. Who knew all the hot sauce drippings would hint at actual human blood drippings later on?

As I walked to the bus stop, ignoring cab after cab, the winds started howling and blowing straighter and harder to my face than usual. I then decided to carry out the dumbest move possible, which was to cover my face (and about 90 percent of my vision, stupidly) with an umbrella and trudge to said bus stop. As I charged into thunderstorm Butchoy’s winds and rain, I felt the pavement lower, which in a span of a second and a half, tripped me – HARD. I crashed on just one hand on what appeared to be a salad of tall wet grass, wires, and wooden planks of a supported tree.

The wood sliced the back of my left forearm, pointer finger, and knee. Blood everywhere. I stood up looking like I was in a war or something, ashamed of people staring. “I’m okay…guys,” I whispered. I had wet mud all over my shoes and pants as well as blood over my forearm and fingers. I looked like I had just crawled in the mud like Rambo.

This is what I get for trying to commute, I remember thinking. I would’ve normally taken a cab, or driven, but there I was, “exploring” the commute, standing inside the bus, feigning confidence and wiping the dripping blood off my forearm with the rain from my hair. Wet look gone worse. I had mud, I had grass, I had rain, I had blood.

Eventually I made it from the bus stop outside Piccadilly building in The Fort to the Ayala MRT station, which housed the nearest Mercury Drug branch. I entered through the exit door, but the guard didn’t seem to mind as I was red and ready for treatment.

Thing was, I had to collect all the materials myself in order to dress my wound: Betadine, a roll of gauze, and tape. I also bought (checkered) Band-Aids for the wounds on my fingers. After the purchase, I finally showed up at the hotel to my friends’ disgust — and later on, relief, as I taped myself.

Aside from regaining the common sense not to walk with an umbrella in my face, my thoughts amounted to this as well: Mercury Drug ought to carry some sort of reliable wound package. That would’ve been totally useful for an injured passerby. Add a pill of mefenamic acid to relieve any pain and a bottle of water to said package, and you should be good to go.

And I know my wound could not possibly compare to those whose houses have been submerged in the floods. But I guess all this is the less heavier side of things. You can’t really help rain victims if you can’t even help yourself. You can’t help rain victims if you’re out there tripping and bleeding on baby tree stumps. You can’t donate goods if you look like you need the goods yourself.

Looking back I could’ve avoided this fate had I stayed for the second meeting’s pizza. But I did not. At the end of the day, I became my own medic and everything became less of a big deal. I just have to get some cebo de macho soon.

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