Kapow

Yesterday my journey home from work took 2.5 hours. Usually it takes only 40 minutes but the combination of heavy rain, slow traffic, it was a Friday, everybody needed to leave the office at the same time contributed to the massive crawl all the way from Bangi to Taman Tun.

As I reached the Petronas station at Taman Tun, I heard a loud explosion from the engine part of the car and lots of white steam came out from under the hood mengaburi pandangan. Luckily I was nearly home (so to speak) and could just park by the roadside. Imagine if it had happened while I was on the highway. Tak dapat nak bayangkan kemarahan dan cemuhan berpuluh ribu pengguna kenderaan yang lain kerana saya akan menyebabkan trafik bertambah perlahan.

And as I sat in the car waiting for help to arrive (nak keluar, hujan), I decided that should this incident cause my engine to go kaput and make me buy a new car, I'd get the new pink MyVi and change the upholstery to candy pink with white trimmings.

Kalau Superman yang datang membantu, dia pasti terbang dari langit dan turun ke bumi memakai spenda merah di luar kan? Tetapi yang datang menolong saya bukan Superman. Yang datang menyelamat datang membawa dua orang pomen berbangsa Nepal (nowadays even superheroes need to outsource. The labor cost is much lower).

It turned out that the radiator hose exploded. Nothing wrong with the engine at all. What they did was do a temporary fitting, took my car to the workshop to get it fixed today. After breakfast I will go and see how my purple car is doing. So no need to book that new pink MyVi after all.

And who needs Superman when you have Superbobo? Merci beaucoup ya. I owe you one :)

A shark story (not a short story)

Pagi tadi saya singgah sebentar di stesen minyak untuk mengisi tangki yang hampir kosong (saya memang suka buat blog entry berkenaan kejadian-kejadian yang berlaku di stesen minyak). Semasa sedang berjalan semula ke kereta selepas membayar di kaunter saya ternampak sebuah kereta Nissan X-Trail hitam di belakang kereta saya. Hmmm. Aku rasa aku kenal kereta ini. Saya berjalan dekat sedikit. Saya nampak ada seorang lelaki sedang berusaha membuka penutup tangki minyak. Waaa memang sah lah saya kenal abang ni. Tapi saya tak berapa nampak dia sebab dia agak terselindung sedikit. Dia lagi lah tak perasan saya langsung kerana sibuk mengisi minyak sehingga tidak pandang kiri kanan. Orang Jawa kata "engrossed".

Saya rasa macam nak buat stunt sedikit. Ni seronok ni kalau buat kejutan di pagi hari. Saya pun berjalan perlahan-lahan menuju ke bahagian belakang keretanya dan bila saya berada betul-betul di belakangnya saya menyergahnya sambil berkata "Hahh apa buat kat sini abang Jerong! Pagi-pagi dah keluar?"

Abang tersebut punyalah terkejut. Dia pusing dan memandang saya atas bawah atas bawah seraya berkata: "WHO YOU CALLING JERONG-JERONG?"

Eh. Alamak. Rendah-rendah tu dah lebih kurang. Kepala botak pun dah macam sama. Pulak tu pakai spek atas kepala. Eh muka Jawa pun dah ada iras lah. Tapi abang ni bila marah cakap omputih (kalau nak tahu sesetengah orang Melayu cakap omputih "when it's serious").

Lantas dengan rasa yang sungguh segan silu saya meminta maaf dan beredar secara perlahan-lahan ke kereta saya.

Silap orang rupanya. Ooops. Sorry.

Selamat Pengantin Baru 2011

A few days ago I went out for dinner with two good friends of mine, a husband and wife couple. The wife was in the same boarding school as I was in Kg Kongo and and the husband and I (and the wife as well) studied in the same town in France during our university years.

We were happily enjoying our Arab dishes and chatting away when the topic of ehem-ehem, marriage, cropped up. I always say ehem-ehem because nearly every day someone will have a remark or crack a joke or ask me about this. Ti kenapa ko tak kahwin lagi? Ti aku rasa ko ni memilih sangat la. Ti ko nak tak aku kenalkan ko dengan mamat ni? Ti tak kisah la tinggi ke rendah ke. Ti susah-susah ko kahwin dengan aku je la. Ya. Banyak juga terjadi babak-babak promosi diri sendiri. But for me that is all harmless flirting since ramai yang mengusik tetapi jika tiada yang betul-betul bertanya ia hanyalah sekadar kata-kata di angin lalu.

Anyway back to my dinner story. When this hot topic came up they asked me the same question too. When am I finally going to find myself a good decent guy and settle down and have tall children who can speak fluent French? OK so maybe ada sedikit tokok tambah but that was the gist lah. But they didn't stop there. The husband came up with an offer yang telah membuat saya terpegun dan termenung sebentar. He offered to pay for my wedding party for 1000 people and his wife will do all the floral arrangements for the ceremony and dais (should I have the courage to go through the bersanding thingy....kenapa perlu ada adat bersanding itu? Kalau saya jemput saudara-mara dan rakan-taulan datang makan-makan dan horey-horey sahaja pun boleh kan?)

And the deadline is his next birthday, which is on the 30th of May 2011. But since that day is a week day, so the three of us have marked Sunday 29th of May 2011 on our handphone calendar to be the expiry date for this offer. So basically I have a wedding day set on this day.

The venue will be at the Laman Budaya Shah Alam. The concept will then have to be a garden wedding since it is going to be outdoors. Cuma temanya sahaja yang masih belum ditentukan lagi. Mungkin tema Hawaii. Mungkin juga tema Baywatch (since there's the lake). There's a small island on the lake that can be used as a tempat pelamin (or so they tell me as they took me to the place to show me around and I was like OMG my crazy friends are dead serious!). I asked them why do they want to go to such lengths? Their answer was simple: I am the last penghuni of the Berek Bujang among our circle of friends.

So while we're at it I was wondering if there are other generous donors who might want to contribute as well. Come on guys, what say you? Peti sejuk tiga pintu? Pakej Bulan Madu dan Spa? Pengambilan khidmat jurugambar berbakat? Set bilik tidur IKEA beserta lantai kayu dan wall trimmings?

Jika tiada aral melintang, 29 Mei 2011 akan menjadi hari yang amat bermakna dalam hidup saya. Ada makan-makan, ada gelak ketawa, ada live band SMSS?/kumpulan gamelan?/kumpulan keroncong?, ada stunt saya dibawa ke pulau kecil di tengah tasik Shah Alam itu dengan menaiki bot untuk duduk di atas pelamin dan sesi foto bersama para jemputan (kalau tak pun salam-salam dengan semua orang pun OK kan?)

So do keep that day free guys. You might have a wedding to attend.

And now I need to find myself someone who's hubby potential.