throwing knives! throwing knives!

it was a joke i initially shared with JC.

at certain hours on most days, people converge near my workstation and start talking all at the same time, ramming me with a wall of noise. it's worse at the women's toilets, with the narrow corridor leading to eat amplifying the noise of women's toilet chatter and the sound escaping near my station. it's comparable to the sounds of a wet market generated in a hour, compressed to an area two meters tall and a meter wide, crammed within a fifteen minute period.

many people, when they're about to leave the office (or a party, or some other social gathering), sometimes has this tendency of stopping just as they reach the door, looking back at their companions and shouting last minute instructions (or other things they suddenly remembered they just had to say). nevermind if their companions are three rows away from door, and of course the last minute stretches to five or more. sometimes, it takes the form of two colleagues walking to the door; by the time they reach it, they will stop and chat in rather loud voices heard by people five workstations away. they also effectively block the door from people trying to get out or get in.

one time i was assaulted by a walking wall of noise, i told JC that i wanted to bring a set of throwing knives. when he asked me why, i told him i wanted to throw them at people who annoys the hell out of me. but just to assure people that i am not (yet) a homicidal maniac: that was a joke. nevertheless, i described how i could sleathily throw knives at people and watch with satisfaction as one by one they all fall down. again: that was (mostly) a joke.

JC said i was being too harsh. i said the noise aggravated me.

a few minutes later, a louder noise bomb hit us. this time, JC agreed that throwing knives may actually be a good idea.

one time i was in the LRT running along taft avenue with a friend. we met up in carriedo and decided to head to pedro gil for lunch and get away from quiapo packed with saturday morning shoppers. the train we were on gave a warning beep whenever the door was about to close. the beep was this really loud, high pitched noise that i described as capable to coursing into me until the depths of my soul.

the incident sounds funny now, in hindsight. but then i remember the train stopping at the united nations station, with the alarm going off twice. that's twice the normal soul-gutting aural torture we had to endure from the blasted, blasted buzzer.