VICTORY SHALL BE YOURS FOR THE TAKING IN ALL CAPS!

I had the pleasure of being invited as one of the "important" guests at my college friend's wedding this February. In Baguio. In time for the Panagbenga Festival. Which will have lots, and lots, of people with life issues escaping from the troubles of their meaningless lives. Unlike us, we're just there for the wedding. Which is meaningful.

The person in the flower costume is a visual representation of birth, pertaining to a child being splurted out of a vagina. Mermaids and fairies are also visual representations of... well, mermaids and fairies.

(Image taken from http://irpex.blogspot.com/2011/11/panagbenga-2012-slated-on-nov-14.html)

Important because it's a small wedding, we are hand-picked guests, and I may have been possibly tagged as "the guest who will have seconds, or maybe even thirds" on that wedding.

So, I took the liberty of organizing the trip and hotel reservations for me and two of my invited college friends.

I did it because of the fact that I have the most "idle" time, and I know that I am the most organized and responsible among us three. Heck, I may even pass as a qualified Event Organizer for Events.

Two cigarettes at a time: Responsible and organized.

So I checked the reservations at the hotel, which the lovely bride had already taken care of. So that part's done.

Then came the reservation for the bus.

It's been years since I last went to Baguio, and all those trips included family members. This is first time that I'll be there as an adult, outside the comfort of my family and their tight budgets.

And so Victory Liner was the top choice, and I believe there isn't any other liner that's good enough for the trip.

I want to be in all-smiles when I'm receiving water from a good-looking woman. Also, she also pats breasts with water bottles, so that's good enough.

Woman, you got your necktie wrong. But you made up for it for that tight dress, the smile, and the idea that you may not be wearing any pants in this photo, so that's good enough.

(Images taken from victoryliner.com)

I went to the website and completed the forms. I completed the reservations for the "to" and the "back" trip on the same day.

The plan was to go there via a regular air-conditioned bus and go back as a boss via the Deluxe bus.

We want to preserve our freshness upon arriving at Baguio, since it's a wedding and we want to impress people despite the fact that our good appearances are working on a very limited budget. This reason is now defeated by reserving a regular air-conditioned bus for the "to" trip, and not the Deluxe one. This statement is now irrelevant since it's not the point of this story.

A day later, I received the confirmation email.

Confirmation email for "The Greasy Forehead"

I was confused at first, and I tried to analyze the results. Then I read the other email for the other reservation.

The Other Email

It turned out that they had it the other way around. Although I expected the online system to not be perfect, it's a surprise that they had this simple delegation error.

Or maybe, I'm the one that's wrong. Maybe this is the correct reservation records, and I now owe more than 4,000 pesos of bus fare to that liner.

I am now known as Mariano Juancho as the Bus Liner Estafador.

At the end, I had to ignore the reservation since I do not want to ride a bus that's suppose to take me home, but won't.

And when I wake up inside the bus, I never left Baguio at all.