By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

NO, it’s not just those doomsday scenarios that got me thinking this isn’t going to be a good year all around. People, it seems, don’t even want to keep track of the days and weeks and months ahead.

How do I know this? Well, I didn’t receive a single wall calendar this year. And neither have most of my friends, assorted relatives, and I bet the whole barangay. Yup, for the better part of this month, the usual, “Huyy!” (hurled with a brisk upward tilt of the chin) or “Good morning po” has been replaced by the ingratiating, “Kumusta po? May kalendaryo ba?”

Indeed, in our tiny flood-prone community, we used to dispense calendars like an Ecstasy addict blowing kisses. Our household would be swimming in calendars days before Christmas, as would the SIM office. As my associate ed Ruey used to say, you couldn’t swing a cat by its tail without hitting a frigging rolled up calendar around here. But now, zero. As in nil. Nada. Zilch!

Not one of those giant calendars from Star Paper Mills whose detailed record of the daily tides spells salvation for us sea creatures in Malabon. None of those homely calendars from Mercury Drug that has monthly discount coupons for all sorts of medication, nor those glossy calendars of pristine beaches and tufted castles that PAL used to give away, complete with a desk calendar of the same romantic destinations.

Yes, after years of describing them as visual disasters, we’ve also began to miss the cluttered calendars from the National Disaster Coordinating Council that were surely designed with jeepney art in mind. And what about those tasteful Globe wall calendars that featured the zen-inspired photographs of Don Jaime Zobel and printed on plyboard so smooth and sturdy we were loath to throw them away at year’s end?

Why, I even miss those religious calendars that have the Holy Family, the Sacred Heart, or the Mother of Perpetual Help looking at me reproachfully, as if these sacred icons know how we’d occasionally christen family and friends with the improbable names of saints printed on every square. Even gas stations have gone miserly, with gasoline boys looking away when asked about their annual gesture of goodwill to gas-guzzlers.

Sure we got a few diaries, leather-bound notebooks eagerly awaiting our list of appointments and to-do lists. But it’s not the same. These function more as private journals or confessionals, handy repository of heady info and sensitive stuff like our PIN, SSS number, voter’s ID number, last month’s Meralco billing, the balance in our ATM, current weight to waistline ratio, etc. Definitely not for public consumption.

Now about those wall calendars. Flamboyantly arrayed over our dining table, the calendar of choice for the year often becomes the center of family conversation. “Lunes pala ang birthday ni Papa,” the hubby might say. “Uy, 930 ang high tide bukas. We have to leave early,” the son would suggest. And moi, ever parsimonious, would scrutinize the inventory of household items that I usually list on the calendar and would say something like, “Teeka, three weeks pa lang yung LPG natin, ubos na? Are you sure hindi half-enpty yung delivery nila?” And so on.

Indeed, the calendar has now evolved from a mere reference for dates to remember into Everyman and Everywoman’s confidante, handy planner, memory juggler, accessible wall art, etc.

For the record, here’s a list of how most people have made this item indispensable to quality of life:

1. For better vacations. “Let’s see now. Holy Week this year falls on the first week of April. Can we schedule that Bora trip before that so we don’t join the horde?”

2. For better relationships. “There now: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, wedding anniversary, birthday, date when we first met. All circled in red so I don’t forget. Can’t risk sleeping in the doghouse again,” the beleaguered hubby might say.

(Of course if it were up to us Women of a Certain Age, we’d expunge all calendars of our birth dates. We can certainly afford to miss two or three of those danged birthdays).

3. For flood (and car) survival. “High tide at 6:30 a.m.; gotta leave the house by 5. Low tide at 11 pm. Great, I can have the car washed early tonight.”

4. For smaller families. Devout Catholics would rather use natural contraception, otherwise known as the calendar method. Guess why,

5. For stronger libido. “Naked nymphets on Tanduay Rum and Ginebra San Miguel calendars. Time to go to that Happy Place inside my room!”

6. For stronger sales. Think sari-sari stores and the aforementioned hard drinks calendar tacked on their outside wall.

7. The better to collect. “Let’s see, my paluwagan share is due on the 15th. And yes, Tentay borrowed P500 due on the 10th.”

8. Better aesthetics and better dreams. How many of us can really say we’ve got Sharon Cuneta–or Marian Rivera or Ara Mina– in our bedroom and smiling down at us every night?

9. Better conscience. So what do you do with old calendars? Recycle them, of course. Cut them up into little squares and use the blank backside for those phone messages you get all day.

10. A better taskmaster. Nothing stimulates the brain cells better than those picturesque views of faraway places. “Got to save up, got to save up, got to save up and go,” I tell myself as I wrestle with writer’s block and impending deadlines.

Of course, not having received any travel-worthy calendar this year, I now have the perfect excuse for missing deadlines. So there.

For more changes this year–radical or otherwise–check out the Jan. 11 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. Free! with your copy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.