THE PARABLE OF THE BORROWED BOYFRIENDS

A girl living alone can still be the luckiest girl in the world. But what happens when she’s fearful of hiring generic handymen? If the girl is really lucky, she has friends who let her borrow their boyfriends.

First, I feel that I have to justify my fear of hiring generic handymen.

In all of five years of living by myself, I have never ever had any need for a handyman. But at the start of the sixth year, my faucet started to leak. The sound of the dripping drove me crazy and so I had to asked my landlords to send a handyman over.

I did this with a heavy heart. But I had no choice.

So there I was with my leaky faucet and the neighborhood handyman whom I didn’t know from Adam. My faucet got fixed but soon enough everyone in the neighborhood knew that I lived alone. I usually faked it when people asked me intrusive questions like, “Are you living all by yourself?” I would answer, “My cousins live with me.” (In truth, I do have cousins in the vicinity of Metro Manila but I am not close to them. I was raised in a strictly nuclear family unit that encouraged my need for space.)

Anyhow, I suppose I’ve paid dearly for my encounter with the handyman. (I should have just asked for help from any of my friends’ reliable mates.) I just got robbed. Yes, you got that right. Someone entered my teeny weeny studio apartment and ran off with my DVD player. I’m not saying that that the handyman did it. I’m saying that the minute the word got out that I was living alone, I automatically made it to the neighborhood thieves’ list.

In my case, it was just my DVD player that was taken. I still have the wires, the power cord, and the remote control. I have toyed with the idea of leaving these on my doorstep. I don’t want the thief/thieves to fence the DVD player without its attachments.

Perhaps, it’s a good thing that my soon-to-be-ex place is in shambles right now. I’m moving to a safer neighborhood, where I don’t have to worry about my block turning into a red light district. I have nothing against sleazy places but, believe me, once one appears in a residential area, one can only say, “There goes the neighborhood.”

So, anyway, in the face of this stressful backdrop–the neighborhood that has gone bad, my being alone, and my having to move to another place, I have realized that I still have a lot to be thankful for. I have friend who let me bug their boyfriends for handyman advice and what-not.

There’s my friend Sugar, whose boyfriend Efren (a name Sugar can’t say because she thinks it isn’t him so she calls him Junjun) and brother, Mark Ian, hauled my stuff to my new place. Sugar’s boyfriend then proceeded to fix the damaged faucet and shower knob. Sugar’s brother was thankfully tall enough to screw on my new light fixtures.

There’s my friend Marj, whose boyfriend and soon-to-be-hubby Redencio (nicknamed Denden) has been giving me detailed advice on installing doorknobs, doorbells, and airconditioning units. This guy, who’s a very busy lawyer, once took time out to fix my cellphone and he consistently answers all of my stupid questions.

There’s Marj’s brother Chong, whose boyfriend Addison (nicknamed Addie) gave me the lowdown on the cost of bedframes even as he and Chong were probably cuddling.

I know that these three couples are a perfect match because their love for each other extends to their friends. Mind you, the act of “boyfriend borrowing” indicates that we humans are indeed evolving.

I mean, in the Bible, “borrowing” another woman’s mate meant other things! Perish the thought. In fact, I don’t have to read the Bible to know that.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the most popular cautionary tale pertaining to such arrangements:

For all you kiddies who only know Hollywood as the land populated by Paris Hilton and her posse, the woman on the topmost photo is 1950s Hollywood sweetheart Debbie Reynolds. Her romance with teen idol and singing sensation Eddie Fisher (the man in the photo) captured the headlines, and they were married in 1955. Debbie gave birth to a daughter, Carrie (more popularly known as Princess Leia of the Star Wars series) in 1956, and to a son, Todd Emmanuel in 1958.

Now, Debbie was a pal of Elizabeth Taylor. I can’t vouch for the veracity of these allegations, but here’s where it becomes a “cautinary tale:”

Shortly after Debbie gave birth to her son, Elizabeth Taylor’s then-husband Mike Todd, died in a plane crash. Mike was Eddie’s best friend so Debbie thought nothing of it when Eddie spent much time comforting Elizabeth. Alas, Elizabeth and Eddie “fell in love” and a scandal ensued. Elizabeth later divorced Eddie, though.

It would be many, many years later before Debbie and Elizabeth were believed to have made peace.

In 2001, Debbie and Elizabeth appeared in the made-for-TV flick These Old Broads, which was written and executive-produced by Debbie’s daughter Carrie. The press naturally had a field day over the casting.

The point is, I’m no Elizabeth Taylor.