This entry was posted on Thursday, June 8th, 2006 at 16:19 and is filed under Daily Grind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Street Scare
I was waiting for a cab in front of the Philippine Stock Exchange Center in Ortigas yesterday afternoon when I first noticed this group of people with neon pink name tags. One of them, a guy in a jeans and a denim jacket, suddenly approached me. His name was either Jim or James. He said that he was from this religious group, Jesus is Lord and that he was doing a “challenge” by coming up to me and asking for any amount, even just one peso. The amount didn’t matter because the challenge was (from what I gathered) to approach a stranger I guess, and successfully ask for the money. He actually apologized if he scared me. He said that wasn’t his intent.
Before his approach, I had just avoided a mother with 2 kids begging for their fare home. Most people are probably familiar with this scheme/scam now. A person begs for some contribution for their fare, and yet, a month later, you still see them in the exact place.
Anyway, back to the Jim/James. Intentional or not, he frakking creeped me out. He talked too fast, and he had this creepy, oily smile. I wasn’t buying his spiel. I was trying to think of how to get myself out of this situation when 2 more people broke away from the group and approached me. Fark fark felgercarb! One of them was actually decently dressed, in long sleeves and slacks. But my instincts told me to get away. Thankfully, I was able to hail an empty cab and convince the driver to bring me back to trafficy Makati by adding 30 bucks to his meter fare.
Looking back, Jim/James _was_ probably telling the truth. They probably were on some team building, Punk’d kind of activity. But I’m still relieved I got away. I gave the cabby an extra 50 for saving me. =p
On another note, Paris Hilton’s song, Stars Are Blind, is quite catchy. I actually like it. =p
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