Yesterday was the first time in weeks I managed to get out of the office before dark. That also explain why I haven’t been blogging. I have been neck deep in a very complex case at work involving China. China is not in my portfolio but I got sucked into it because I happen to be holidaying near China when that case started so I was called to attend to it (yes, I have to work during my holiday - no mercy there!) Anyway, I used to think doing Indian work is taxing but oh boy, China is easily worse. In fact, between the 2, I might have to say that China is a lot tougher to navigate because the Chinese are sneakier. The Indians may be complicated but they are less conniving… or maybe they don’t cover their tracks as well as the Chinese? I don't know anymore.
Anyway between India and China work, I have been busy making AMENDS this month. By amends, I mean correcting things that are wrong – like my car. Fabio, my trusted car and friend for the past 4-5 years, have been ill. When I (finally) found the time to bring him to a mechanic two weekends ago, I was told that many things are wrong with him. My mechanic’s exact words (translated from Hakka): “Can’t you tell something is wrong with your car? Doesn’t it feel like you have been driving a toy car?” OOPS!
It took 2 trips to the mechanic and a lot of moolah (it’s a 4 figure sum!) to put Fabio back in shape. After his fix-up, Fabio definitely feels less like a “toy car” but a real stallion instead. I was happily speeding along in Fabio last weekend when he started making a funny sound. I got down the car and snooped around. I didn’t see anything amiss (but then again, how would I know what to look out for, right?) but I noticed that one of Fabio’s wheel caps (i.e. that thing that covers the hole where you pump air into your wheel) has fallen off. Or maybe stolen. Who steals these things?
Anyway, I went to a hardware shop in Clementi Old Town to find a replacement cap. I told the young man at the shop that I wanted “that thing that covers the air hole in my car wheel” and strangely, he understood and told me he doesn’t sell it but I can get them from a petrol station or a car workshop. I asked how he knew where to get the caps and he said that his caps were stolen before too.
Frou: How do you know they are really stolen and not fallen off?
Hardware Man: Because all 4 of them are gone! And they are expensive ones, I tell you, I bet a motorcyclist took them.
Frou: So, what did you do then?
HM: I stole the caps from the car next to me, lah!
Frou: Aiyoh! How can you do that!
HM: An eye for an eye mah! What else should I do?
I contemplated stealing a cap from someone’s car but I dropped the idea because I FEAR the karma police. Instead, I bought some heavy duty tape from Hardware Man and I taped up the air hole. I don’t know whether it held up - I haven’t checked because I was STILL distracted by the funny sound coming from Fabio, which obviously has nothing to do with the missing wheel cap. Finally, the security guard from my apartment wave me down one day to tell me, “Miss! Look under the front of your car! Something has dropped. Don’t you hear a funny sound?”
What dropped?!
I looked under my car and found that “the plastic thing in front” is broken and the funny sound is the sound it makes when dragging along the road! The Toe cleverly corrected me when I told her about “the plastic thing in front”. She said, “You mean, the mud flap?”
You know, sometimes I don’t know if I deserve to own a car.
Anyway, I taped the “mud flap” back with the same heavy duty tape I used to cover the air-hole in my wheel. GRR! I don’t have time to go to the mechanic again. Can someone please get me a new mud flap and a wheel cap for Christmas?!
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