Read Plzzz

"What was the last thing I did for the first time?" I
wondered aloud.

"Took a bath?" my brother offered.

"Very funny." I said. "I could also set a record for
cracking someone's skull open with a tub of body
butter in five seconds."

He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "You also try to
limit your food intake to five tons of ice cream a
day. That's definitely cutting down from your usual—"

He ducked as a pot of grapefruit-scented lotion sailed
toward his head, and scooted out the door before I
could do any more damage.

Nonetheless, I was still left with my dilemma: Had I
tried out any new things lately?

Trying on a new pair of shoes didn't count. Going to a
new restaurant didn't seem to solve my problem. Doing
photo shoots was fun, but not exactly new, since I did
one at least once a week. As for adventure, I tried
wakeboarding early this year, but it was too long ago
to count as a new experience.

After racking my brain looking for an experience that
qualified as new and exciting, I came to the
conclusion that my life was deeply boring.

I called up a friend. "Hey, what's the last thing you
did for the first time?"

"I… uh… Er, why?" he asked.

"See? Our lives are boring. We can't come up with
something fresh, exciting, and most importantly, new.
We've become slaves to routine!" I paced around my
room, hoping to find a wildly exciting activity.

"So what do you propose to do?"

"Free up your weekend, we're going to liven up our
dull, middle-class existence. I'm going to list a
bunch of dares for you to do, so work on things you
want me to do as well."

We met up the next day, lists in hand. We compared
notes and crossed out the activities we couldn't do
due to budget constraints and time deficiencies. We
also crossed out the things that would get us arrested
or land us in the evening news shows, like riding a
skateboard along Edsa, naked; painting a Green Archer
at the Blue Eagle Gym; and shouting bomb threats at
the airport.

My friend was all for trying out exotic delicacies
like stewed snakes and testicle soup, but when I
suggested that we serve his dog for dinner, he
promptly clammed up.

Since learning how to breathe fire would take up more
than a weekend, and skydiving was cost-prohibitive, we
ended up with a rather conservative list of things to
do. Just the same, they were things we had never done
before. He was to wear a pair of heels, while I had to
change a tire. Both of us also made plans to take
hip-hop dance classes.

Little spasms

Taking a dance class shouldn't be a problem for most
people; but unlike most people who can wiggle their
hips with relative ease, I cannot dance. My sister
once likened me to a wooden ruler in an attempt to
demonstrate my dancing abilities.

"You dance like this, you see," she said, raising her
arms straight above her head and twitching about in
abrupt little spasms. "You look like a meter stick
trying to dance."

So it was with some trepidation that I stepped into
the Switch Hip-hop dance studio, tying a polka-dotted
pink bandana around my head in hopes of looking more
ghetto. It didn't work.
The regular dancers were already warming up; they went
through sit-ups, headstands and other yoga-like
contortions while our little group of neophytes gaped
at them through the window.

"I'll just take photos," I announced, but someone
dragged me by the collar to the dance floor.

The first few minutes of the class forcibly reminded
me of high-school Physical Education dance classes,
where I hid behind more gifted classmates, hoping to
escape the notice of the teacher.

"We'll go over the basics first," Tyrone, the
instructor said. "There are several kinds of hip-hop:
old school, contemporary and fusion, among others.
Okay, step into position!"

He brought us through a series of various positions
and dance moves. At the end of 30 minutes, the muscles
that I forgot I even had were screaming in protest.
The fully mirrored room reflected my every awkward
movement, and loud giggles escaped from our group
whenever Tyrone told us to add some attitude to our
moves.
I had attitude, all right—one more appropriate for a
giddy schoolgirl than a confident street dancer.

The session was capped by a dance-off—the type that
you see in movies where gangs form a triangle and do
various combinations of jerky movements, while the
other gang heckles them from a safe distance.
Our class was divided into two, and the first group
went through the moves in fluid, synchronized motions.
Then it was our turn.

After about five beats, I promptly lost my way and
stopped dancing. The other neophytes followed suit,
apparently confused by the series of quick jerks,
twirls and kicking. In the middle of the song, only
two were left dancing; the rest of us had collapsed
into uncontrollable giggles.

The session ended with me groaning over my aching
limbs, while a ballerina friend sought refuge at the
warm-up bar at the corner of the studio, practicing
perfect arabesques to soothe her wounded ego.

"Even when we try to do hip-hop, we're still kikay,"
she commented, delicately dabbing sweat from her
forehead. But at least the first task was done.

Tough work

The next day, I approached our driver and asked him to
teach me how to change a tire. He looked at me like I
wanted to dive into a pool of grease (which I probably
was going to do).

"Sigurado ka ba?" he asked me, one eyebrow raised high
enough to hit the ceiling. Rolling his eyes, he lugged
the bag of tools out of the trunk and resigned himself
to a morning of forehead smacking.

I've never tinkered with a car in my entire life; I
don't even drive. I briefly contemplated changing my
task to something simpler, like eating a 16-scoop ice
cream sundae by myself.
However, I eventually decided that if I had to do
something new, it was going to be useful (that, and
because I didn't want to be called a sissy for the
rest of my life).

It was tough work. My muscles, which were still
screaming in pain from the previous night's dance
class, could barely lift the spare tire. Loosening the
lug nuts and jacking up the car called for a vat of
grandmother-scented ointment on my limbs.

However, replacing the parts wasn't as difficult,
because I was more than eager to screw back on the lug
nuts and see the end of my chore.

On the way back to the house, I thought I saw Manong
kick the tire dubiously, as if he were afraid it would
fall apart on the road.

There are monumental things that you would want to
check off on your life's to-do list, if you had all
the time and money in the world: photo-worthy
adventures like seeing the "Mona Lisa," swimming in
the Great Barrier Reef or bungee-jumping in the Great
Canyon.

Then you have the mundane first-time activities that
just about anyone can do, like riding a bike without
training wheels, going on a date without a chaperone,
or yeah, even changing a tire.

While the activities left me with little more than a
battered body and a bruised ego (no breathtaking
snapshots or swashbuckling stories), they made my
otherwise humdrum life a little less ordinary. Maybe I
didn't end up with a brag-worthy tale of daring
adventure, but if just for the laughs that went into
the planning and execution of the dares, the
humiliation (and pain!) was more than worth it.