never trust your brother to pay the bills. or at least trust him when he says "just reimburse me for the cable payments so i can get the points in my credit card." chances are, you'll wake up one day and realize you don't have cable anymore.

there was a time when my brother used to handle the money around the house. then, he hooked up with this chick and stopped living at home for a while, so i decided it would be better if i took care of it. i opened a bank account, enrolled all the bills, and religously made a trip to an atm machine once a month to make the necessary transactions.

i do it for meralco and pldt phone bills. i used to do it for cable, too, until my brother volunteered to handle the payments himself.

so, monthly, the bills would come and i'd ignore them. they're getting paid, i smugly though to myself.

this morning i woke up and, since my routine dictates i do this, searched my room (v. v. messy room) for the remote control and opened the television.

blue screen.

ah, i always get reception problems with etc and etc second avenue, i told myself, maybe this is just it. i then changed channels. channel 2. i ALWAYS get channel 2.

blue screen.

my once sleepy self then jumped out of bed and searched for the cable bill which, all this time, had been innocently staring up at me from a table in the living room. turns out we hadn't paid cable in months and there was a disconnection notice already. and we have to pay TODAY or our cable will be cut off.

so, first thing i'll do is to make the necessary payments. and, hopefully, the absence of cable is just a glitch. it did say on the bill we have to pay on or before today so i have until midnight to make the necessary payments before they disconnect my cable. anything before that and i might have to litigate my first personal case soon.