… are preserved mandarin orange peels. Or preserved lemon slices, if the former is not available. But mostly orange peels.
It’s not a cool thing to have in one’s car, but you know what? Everyone (I know) love preserve orange peels but no one wants to admit to it. Without fail, every time someone sits in (the front passenger seat of) my car and sees my bottle of orange peels, they go, “AIYOH! Why are you so auntie, eat such things!” And then, they would open the bottle (“just out of curiosity”, they would say), sniff at it and eat one slice. Then a few more. Eventually, they put the bottle down (in exasperation) but before reaching our destination, there will be at least one other time they pick up the bottle and have another slice. At the end of the trip, I get a complain that I am making an auntie out of them.
Besides it being addictive, eating orange peels in the car is nostalgic for me because in my younger years, I used to eat them in my dad’s car when we are going for long road trips. It helps with car sickness. I love it first thing in the morning too because its sourness hits a very nice spot and when I’m bored waiting for the lights to change, I munch on them and make “sour face” at the other cars – it keeps me distracted considering Singapore has a traffic light every 500 meter of road.
But as much fun as I have eating orange peels in my car, it looks like this habit has to go PRONTO because this morning, a baby cockroach appeared on my front dashboard as I was driving to work.
I shrieked for a good 5 seconds (“AIYEEEEEEEEE!!!”) but once the initial shock is over, I quickly wound down the window and grabbed the nearest thing I can find, which coincidentally was a plastic national flag, and started using it to ‘guide’ Baby Roach towards the opened window. However, Baby R scurried away in fright and disappeared into the cracks of the car door. I immediately stop the car (in the middle of the road, yes) and opened my car door. I starting using the flag pole to repeatedly poke into the door crease in a bid to lure Baby R away from its hiding place. No results. I grew frustrated and I lean my body out of the car so that I can reach around and trace the entire side of the door. Eventually I did locate Baby R and ‘let it out’ of my car without killing it. Satisfied after seeing that brown thing flop out onto the road, I turn around and wave the flag at the driver(s) of the car(s) behind me who witnessed the whole ordeal and who were, surprisingly, just waiting patiently for me to finish; no honking or anything. Nice folks.
On hindsight, thank goodness, I didn’t make it up to the news because this is exactly the sort of thing that can get one in trouble. Can you imagine the headlines? “Foreign Talent Killing Cockroach In Middle Of Busy Road Using Nation’s Flag”. They might drop the word 'talent' since what I did was not a talented move. By the way, in case you are wondering why I have a flag in my car, the uncle at the SPC petrol station gave it to me during National Day. I don’t think they intend for me to use it to chase away roaches but it was a reflex action; no disrespect intended. Let me repeat here that I buy petrol from SPC because I strongly support local produce. (Do I earn back the right to be called“talent”?)
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