My Soggy Flat Black Doll Shoes (September 11,2007)

My Soggy Flat Black Doll Shoes
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

Tell me. What would seem to be worse than wading through several foot-deep puddles of rainwater under a merciless southwestern wind which appears to be propelling your umbrella as a combat helicopter? I’m not done yet; try imagining yourself in your school uniform soaking wet, your 800 paged Chemistry book all damp and dripping, and to top it all off, your feet are shivering inside those flat black doll shoes. Now, you would ask, why on a shoemaker’s name am I wearing my flats instead of a prescribed one and a half inched heeled shoe? Call me the clumsiest sixteen years old in the universe, but I lost my school shoes a day before this menacing series of unfortunate events occurred. The details to this trauma, I would dare not speak of.

It was unfair of me to blame the foul weather to be the cause of my soggy situation. The primary reason why my puny little feet were submerged under puddles of rainwater was because of pure negligence and degrading it is to say, my own pure stupidity. I took the risk of suffering from leptospirosis and dashed my way towards my next class. Good, that the professor was quite late, thus I savored every minute of drying myself up. Thank goodness, my flat shoes, though drenched, are still decent enough to use for the rest of the day.

The recent visits of typhoon Egay and his ancestors did more than giving me a totally unnecessary splashing shower. Yes, I may have been soaking wet, but during that very same day were thousands of families ready to shift places with me if they could. Seeing that, they lost their homes which are now but tiny figures plunged into the depths of flooding waters. My damp and dripping 800 paged Chemistry book had more luck than some washed out textbooks from schools that were forced to cancel classes. Clearly, those drenched flat shoes are not soggy enough.

For decades, environmentalists, those concerned others, constantly reminds us of our contribution towards the gradual unfriendliness of nature. Global warming, climate change, extinction, tsunamis, these are but common terms that we fear of experiencing in reality. Funny, how these were once used to be jargons and gobbledygook of environmentalists we even once coined as weirdos. None in the mortal power of man can ultimately restore the nature we knew back when we were still not morons. I guess man can’t exert much but to keep such consequence from worsening and no, having an extra one and a half inched heeled shoe inside your schoolbag won’t help.

Knock on the doors of my infantile thoughts; I admit, I can’t answer in a scientifically accepted way. But perhaps, I could point out some obvious must-dos that we can all do to somehow take part in keeping nature from turning against us completely. We wouldn’t want her angry, now do we?

We can’t blame God or the land bridge theory of strategically placing the Philippines between large bodies of water susceptible to super typhoons, or along the ring of fire prone to life-threatening earthquakes and tsunamis, all of which shouts out nowhere near sunny days. The downpour of rain we can’t control, but the aftermath of such which is commonly known as flood, I obviously think we could. Huge leaps such as building dams, dykes, constructing flood control structures and so on are out of a Juan de la Cruz’s hands. It’s for us to pay responsibly our taxes and the government to do their part. What Juan can do is to teach his children how to reduce, reuse and recycle. What Juan can do is to show his children that throwing litter alongside streets is never a practice of a true citizen. What Juan can do is to be an everyday metro aid, proud to be and believe he is ought to be. Now, before you decide to throw your candy wrapper out of your gorgeous CRV automobile, think twice. Your CRV isn’t gorgeous enough after the flooded roads of your country will gobble up your mega powered tires.

Condemn me; I am guilty of denying my responsibility of saving up energy. Well, it may be supported with the fact that Physics clearly stated that energy can neither be created no destroyed. Eventually, I found out that it isn’t with the existence of energy the world is panicking on; it is with its distribution. Once again, Juan de la Cruz can’t easily build nuclear plants or innovate several hydroelectric generators to power up his community. I repeat it’s for us to pay responsibly our taxes and the government to do their part. What Juan can do may just start from using less electricity on daytime; spending on outdoor activities with his children rather than spending time facing his plasma screen television. What Juan can do may just simply be to walk towards a near grocery mart, instead of driving his classy CRV, thus wasting rare fuel in return. What Juan can do is to be an everyday thrift, because he needs to be and he knows has to be. The next time you’d decide to leave on your unused new LCD powered light source, think twice. Your LCD light bulb isn’t powerful enough to brighten up the city after it has died off unto the engulfing darkness.

Since I was in kindergarten, these two were always uttered by my teachers: don’t litter and conserve energy. I didn’t expect that these and among several others would be the simple keys of saving our world, would be the simple keys for our survival. Please take sometime to consider and practice these two simple ways. Think about it, according to my classmate Jason, bottled waters are but a common commodity today, don’t you think there will come a time that bottled oxygen will be sold in groceries? I hope not. I’m afraid it would.

Juan, please help me.
I don’t want my one and a half inched heeled shoes to be soggy too.
I’m counting on you.

(For comments and reactions please send an email to reylangarcia@yahoo.com, an SMS to 09186363090 or visit http://theyoungvoice.blogspot.com ).