Riding in a jeepney on the way to the office a couple of days ago, I was absolutely hating the fact that I had to work drenched. Again. See, typhoon Lando had just stopped by and decided to give us more than our usual bit of rain. Now while on the jeepney, I learnt that another typhoon was making its way to our province. And so I was thinking, "Gotta have more pants ready or I might be running out of dry ones to wear with the storms coming to visit us this quick." Little did I know that Mina was going to be something more than just rain.

A couple of hours into that regular work day, some of us decided to go check the Internet for any news about Mina's whereabouts. It did not matter to us if we were told not to check out other sites that were not related to office work. Sure we work with auto-related sites so how could the Philippine weather station's web site be an authorized site. We did not care at all despite the fact that two of the big bosses were here. Well, safety first.

It turned out that Mina was getting stronger. In the morning, she has become a real enough storm and come the afternoon, it was declared that Mina has become a supertyphoon. Oooookkkaaaaaaaaaayyyyy.

Thank you very much, this is going to be yet another Reming, I thought. However, if Mina really was going to be hitting our province, I thought maybe there were some differences between Mina and Reming. Reming came with really strong winds but heck it also came with quite a huge amount of rain which it poured for quite a long time. My mind was running on to think that if Mina were to come, I was hoping that she at least would throw in her fury of winds (no rains at all) and go away to yet another destination. That way, all we had to suffer were the strong and biting winds rather than the harsh floodwaters.

That day when I went home, I had to drop by the grocery to buy some "necessities". I bought two packs of candles (this thing I have not done at all just to prepare for a storm), some food, and some guilty pleasures (chocolates, mind you!). I could have bought some ciggies but where in the world would I be smoking 'em here in our home? It was fun to think that several of my friends who did some pre-supertyphoon Mina shopping also budgeted everything so as to squeeze in some packs of ciggies to tide them through the next couple of hours of possible raging winds and really cold rains.

Like all others, I waited for the storm to come. Each time I drifted off to sleep, I would wake up thinking that the storm was already nigh and all I had to experience were the bits of what was left of it. We were awaiting its arrival at early Friday morning. Then it became Friday at around noon. Then Friday afternoon. Which became Friday evening and turned into early Saturday morning. But I guessed wrong and all of us guessed wrong. Mina decided not to come.

We Bicolanos sure do have a really weird sense of humor. Well, just like most Filipinos. Friday, during the supposed time that Mina was supposed to arrive, amidst all the forwarded prayer messages for protection against Mina, there was this forwarded joke being sent about to everybody. It said: I hate you MINA. Ano ba talaga? San ka ba talaga? MINAluya. MINAkusog. MINAuran. MINAparos. Ano daw kung MINAlayas ka na sana. Ano? (I hate you Mina. Ano ba talaga? San ka ba talaga? Humihina. Lumalakas. Umuulan. Humahangin. Ano kaya kung lumayas ka na lang. Ano?)

I forwarded this message to some friends and one of them replied that she was already in full gear and that she's already for battle. Oh yeah. You go girl and you show that supertyphoon Mina who's boss.

The happy part about the whole supertyphoon Mina experience was looking at people and seeing that they had the capacity to prepare for calamities such as this one. In fact, in a sense, if Mina happened to have come along and wrecked havoc on our land, it would not be surprising if there were no deaths after Mina left. It really made me happy to find people scrampering about and preparing for such a storm.

As Bicolanos, we often take these typhoons (and even supertyphoons) for granted for we have become accustomed to receiving one at least once every two weeks. And so it happened for supertyphoon Reming that we thought it was just going to yet be another one of those usual typhoons we get but we were proven wrong. Supertyphoon Reming served as a reminder that we still do need to prepare for these things and there are just certain things we should not take for granted.

And so as we bid supertyphoon Mina goodbye, we hope that she never comes back and that she would not wreck havoc to all other areas she may be visiting. Meanwhile, for us, we should always have tons of large plastic bags, candles, batteries, portable radios, and lighters in handy. See, there's still Nonoy, Onyok, Pablo, Quiel, Ramon, Sendong, Tisoy, Ursula, Viring, Weng, Yoyoy, and Zigzag to prepare for and pray that they don't come our way.