Three Weeks Time

here's my card

Have you ever watched a movie or a documentary where a certain movement or action is played in slow motion? Well, I experienced it last Sunday, when I rammed my car into another Waja in front of me.

Yes, I got into an accident, but I was not the only one. Four cars were involved, bumper to bumper, but thankfully nobody got hurt. I was the fourth car.

I don’t want to detail a lot about the accident, since it’s not the best memory to reflect on. It happened really fast and I managed to settle it quite fast as well, thanks to AAM.

But what I want to talk about is this: I miss my car. I miss my car so much. It hurts to think how my car’s face is all ruined. And riding to work in a different car just doesn’t feel the same. The sound system doesn’t sound the same. The smoothness of the drive is not the same. Nothing is the same.

I used to hate how the windows don’t work anymore. I used to complain how I had to replace the door handles twice already. I used to plan how soon I was able to replace it with a new and better car. But now, all I wanted was to have it back.

Get well soon ok? I will see you in three weeks time.

---



Before I forget, Happy Birthday Malaysia! There is indeed no place like home.

It's About To Be A What???

vicious

There is a movie about it. There is a song about it. It’s in the papers as well. For some reason, the duel between two females – whether it is just verbal abuse to pulling of hairs, or worse, lawsuits – always seems to keep everyone interested and glued. Because, as dirty as it sounds, everyone loves a girl fight.

I have seen one girl fight in my entire life. And it was bloody interesting. There, in the middle of club, I watched this girl in a skimpy black dress walked through the masses of dancing bodies towards this other girl. Before I could even breathe, they were hitting each other with their handbags, pulling onto each others hair, shouting out puki this and pantat that, and it was vicious! Although the commotion only lasted a minute, it felt like forever before their respective girlfriends pried the fighting duo from each other.

Whoa. Did that just happened?

Violence is never cool, but I do understand where these girls are coming from. When you are extremely angry, your better judgment goes haywire and for some reason, it seems only natural to hit (or bite and pull) to settle the score. It is incredibly animalistic, and I guess our primal beings get unleashed during such tense moments. Roar!!!

But the thing with all physical fights, especially when all the results are simply damaged egos, black eyes and dented foreheads, is to walk away. There is absolutely no reason to revisit. Unless it ends with a show down, it is wise to say it was a fight and that was just it. Move on. Because one girl fight is cool. A repeating girl fight is like get over it biatch.

Who's Laughing? - Part 3

Multipurpose

It was one of those KL nights when the night sky seemed to have drunk too much and decided to spew furiously on the heated streets and buildings. And as usual, when it rained for hours at night, I always would get incredibly hungry and would crave for soupy meals. I feel like mee bandung, I told Evo over the phone. “Oh me too,” she said, with all puns intended. I then picked her up and drove off to this Malay restaurant nearby her place.

As usual, the place was packed with students and families with loud, pesky kids. We managed to find a table at the far back near the kitchen. Actually, we had to share a table with this family who said it was okay to do so. I then waved my hand at the waiter, ordered two mee bandung and two limau ais, and we waited.

I hope they prepare it fast, I said.

“I know,” Evo said, “I am butt hungry.”

I chuckled. I always do whenever Evo would use butt in front of anything – sleepy, bored, thirsty – to strongly emphasize an emotion. “I borrowed it off butt-ugly,” she explained. “There’s so much punch in butt.”

In five minutes tops, our steaming hot meals came, and the sweet smell of lime and tomatoes floating off the large bowl of mee bandung drove me insane. I wasted no time, and scooped the soft strands of mee and sour-sweet gravy into my mouth. Oh! Sedap gila!

“You know, I had always wanted to know how to cook this,” Evo said, in between slurps.

I think my mom has a recipe and we can –

Splutt!

Apparently, something fell from the ceiling into my bowl of mee bandung, and when I looked closer, it turned out to be a cicak!

OHMYGOD!!!

When I jumped back into my seat, I accidentally tipped the bowl of mee bandung over, spilling its contents across the table, and having the cicak swimming in the current. Within seconds, the cicak fell into this little girls lap who sat beside me, and she fell backwards, and then jumped up and down while screaming, MAK!!!!!!!!

The mother, like lightening, brushed off the cicak that clung onto the little girl’s baju kurung, grabbed hold of her daughter and yelled, “Diam! Diam! Dah! Cicak tak ada!”

Evo and I just stood there, feeling very serba salah, especially when people around us seemed to blame us for the girls hysterical crying through their piercing stares. “Kenapa tadi???” the owner of the restaurant shouted. “Ada cicak,” Evo said, “Dalam mee bandung!”

“Ada cicak???”

To this day, people have rumored that the reason why the mee bandung at that restaurant is so good was because they cook it with cicak. The funny thing though, despite the rumor, people still do flock to the place for the food and the mee bandung, including myself. But, every time when I do go to the place, the owner of the restaurant would always tease me and say, “Hah! Nak makan mee cicak ke?”

And I always said yes.

Reality Bites

Dringggggggggggggggg!!!

What???

That was the first thought in my head. And I think I also said it aloud. Because at that moment, in the middle of opening the refrigerator to get a can of Coke, my mom told me that my brother was getting married. And all I could say was…

What???

“Yeah,” she said, while sitting down by the kitchen table. “He called me this morning to tell me about it.”

It caught me by surprise how calm my mom sounded. And???

“He’s really serious. He wants to get married.”

It only took me seconds to climb back to my room, grab my cellphone, dialed his number and hollored, you’re getting married???

“Yeah,” my brother said, while giggling in between. “Next year.”

After twenty minutes of talking to my brother, and then realizing how serious he was, I told him catch you later and then I just sat there. On my bed. Feeling completely, I dunno, just empty-headed. As if all my brain cells have gathered, voted and agreed to commit mass suicide, there and then, and so to leave me sitting there, mutating, into a freaking sayur.

I then just collapsed on my bed, breathed, hugged a pillow, and had my mind racing into thoughts like, where was I when I was nineteen? Where was I???

At nineteen, I was still a freshman in college. At nineteen, I was partying until the sun came up. At nineteen, I was just horny. But my brother, at nineteen, he wants to get married?

God.

Even at twenty-five, I am no where close to that…

God!

Where am I at twenty-five???

For some reason, as I hugged my pillow tighter, I felt inadequate, Under-achieved. No where close to the level of maturity my younger brother seemed to have. Ok, perhaps he is not as mature, but come on. I have never been certain about anything THAT huge. And there he is now, at nineteen, so certain about getting married.

And here I was, at twenty-five.

Nose Job

Clear!

Reading about my favorite writer muse over her fascination with nose picking made me realizes that this activity is actually liberating and can be regarded as an accomplishment. In the most amusing way, it also seems to boost self-esteem, most importantly, among the over-worked. As such, getting your hands dirty to get the work done never seemed more apt.

This entire nose picking business only shows that the need for personal hygiene will always be with us no matter what. We bathe ourselves in the morning and in the evening. We brush our teeth diligently. We further pick our noses for clearer nasal passageways. We love clean. While bodily cleanliness is highly regarded, pursued and is integrated in our daily rituals, I realize there is indeed a fine line of tolerance, especially in regards to where it is done.

---

So last Thursday, I went over to my colleague’s cubicle to discuss over a forecast report which I have been working on for days.

I can’t seem to get it right, I said. The figures keep on coming back negative.

“Let me see,” my colleague said, waving me his right hand for me to pass the report. I did, and then placed my right elbow on his table, and I jumped when something seemed to have pricked me.

Ouch!

I quickly rubbed my right elbow to find a large clipped fingernail!

“Sorry, is that mine?”

Ewww!!!

---

So you see, one of the places where personal hygiene activities such as fingernail clipping should not be done is at the office cubicle. But it seems like majority of us do think other wise. For instance, there was many times when I saw a certain colleague of mine held a mirror to his face to pull strands of hair from his nose. There were others who would floss. And I have been a guilty for sometimes picking my nose swiftly when my nose feels “full”.

Perhaps the reason why most of us are at fault is because we believe that we have privacy in our cubicles. When in fact, we do not. The thing is, I am not saying we cannot pick our noses, clip our fingernails or pull nose hair at the office. What I am saying is, do it in the restroom cubicle. It is indeed the cubicle where you expect things to be dirty.

Food for Thought

Once in a while

Today was one of those days where I wanted to have lunch alone. My colleagues told me they were all going for fish head curry (again), but I told them I had a lunch appointment. They then started whistling and poking me in the arm, thinking that I was going to lunch with some hot chick, when in fact my lunch appointment was with myself.

Why lunch alone?

Well, for starters, I wasn’t in the mood for talking. Nor was I in the mood to listen to the latest office gossips. All I wanted to do at exactly 1pm today was to drive off to McDonalds and munch on six pieces of crunchy nuggets, one large iced Coke minus the salty fries. And that was exactly what I did.

“Excuse me.” I looked up and saw this senior man in an immaculate dark suit by my table. “Are these seats taken?”

There were obviously three empty seats, so I shook my head no.

“You don’t mind?”

Not at all, I said.

He sat down, I smiled, and then I munch munch munch and stare stare stare out the window. So peaceful, I thought.

“You work around these parts?”

I turned my head, and apparently the stranger was talking to me. Oh no, I said. My office is (bleep). I just came here for lunch.

“Oh that’s far,” he said.

I know, I said. At that moment, I was hoping that the guy would smell from my short responses that I was actually in NO MOOD to chit chat. But the guy did not get it and continued talking.

He told me that he was in the security business. He told me that his partners are from Singapore, and they are “financially-smart but have poor people skills”. He told me that he was looking forward to play golf in Indonesia. He told me his opinions about the Israel-Lebanon situation. And I listened, because at that point, I was actually interested.

“Where are your colleagues?” he suddenly asked me.

Oh they wanted local, but I wanted fast food, I said, which was partially the truth. Where are yours?

“Well,” he said, “I am the boss and apparently, I have been eating lunches alone.”

Oh.

“Just to let you know that when you do climb the corporate ladder, it does get lonely sometimes.”

He later gave a huge sigh as if a huge burden was lifted from him.

At the moment, I realized the difference between him and I was that I wanted to have lunch alone, while he did not. But the similar thing about us was that we were both enjoying what McD’s got to offer, as well as the conversation were having over lunch today.