It has been awhile and I'm still glad tt I have yet to run out of taxi luck.

No, I'm not pregnant with my third kid,
And No, this time, I did not rest my butt in the front seat.

Heeding the worried advice of my girlfriends,
I take the backseat nowadays,
and always slide myself close to the left hand side,
diagonal from the cabby uncle.
So that it's easier to talk.

And according to my girlfren,
most importantly,
more convenient to escape,
Shd cabby uncle decide to go crazy and start grabbing me.

It wasn't a funny ride tonight.

Uncle cabby was telling me about his certain mobile lines were terminated
and sent to certain credit companies
after realising tt I was working for a certain call-centre.

*scrunches up face*

Then somewhere along the CTE,
uncle cabby began to ask abt me.

I told him tt I am just a part-time staff by night,
and a student by day.

Then somehow,
we started chatting abt intimate parts of our lives.

He has 3 daughters,
eldest is 20,
currently still on waiting list of SMU.
2nd girl is 18,
still in poly.
His 3rd baby is 15,
innocent secondary school child.

Him being in the front seat,
I could not see his face,
neither could he see mine,

perhaps tt attributes to a feeling of safeness,
perhaps the dark cosy interior of the cab provided just the right setting for vulnerability.

Despite the matter-of-fact way tt he puts it,
there was a thread of sadness, of helplessness in his voice as he said

"My daughters don't talk to me. The only time they did, was when they need the money"

Somehow,
looking at the back of his head,
I found the courage to say

"I seldom talk to my dad too. I'm closer to my mum. I guess all daughters are closer to mums"

"Maybe I don't see them enough, this is my part-time job too, *laughs humourlessly* in the day, I work for s'pore export"

"Similar case for me, when I reach hm, my dad's aslp, when he wakes up and leaves for work, I am aslp"

He nods in agreement.

A pregnant silence permeated the cab.
Words tt were dancing around us,
a fear to verbalise the painful truth that

sometimes,
even when the situation is right,
even when the chance is there,

we just don't have the courage to communicate anymore.

There is just too many things to be said,
too little ways to say them
and much too much capacity for suppression.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone who has been workin in the call centre where I've been slogging my guts out
would have been acquainted with a familiar friend.

I never knew the taste of recognition is the exact same bitter taste of cold bile
choked in my throat.

It was shortly before 9pm,
and after something called the "group huddle" ,
designed by management to inject some sliver of motivation to call centre slaves in the corporation,

I was full of passion,
energy,
and had smoothly nailed 25 calls.

Time was 8.48pm.

Full of pride,
I hit on the "accept" button,
ready to hit my 26th call.

With the way my luck was going,
I never thought it was going to end.

"Zhen me chen hu ni ne, sian sheng?" ("How may I address u" in mandarin)

The reply came,
in a somewhat familiar tone.

I repeat,
I have never heard the voice before,
but I swear,

I HAVE HEARD THE TONE BEFORE.

"WO SHI MR ANG"

lightning streaked across the sky
a black cat jumped over a coffin

Buttercup of the powerpuff girls teleported in front of me
and whacked me on my face with a sledgehammer.

Could it be?
Is that him,
the one-and-only,
the legendary---

Mr ANG?

I was certain I was going to die,
choked on my bile.

"ni you wo de zi liao liao hoh?" (U haf my info already rite?)

*swallowed*

"shi de, shen me neng bang ni de mah?" (yes, what can I help u wif?)

"Wo yao zhao ni de manager, lah-lia." (I wanna look for ur manager, lahnia)

I enq abt the matter
he refused to tell me,
only tt he spoke to her before.

The only piece of info he is willing to give me is tt

"ta de hokkien hen, ni zhi dao lah, bu shi hen hao de" (He basically means tt her hokkien sucks)

Riiiiight~~~~

HOW THE HELL DO I KNOW WHICH MANAGER'S HOKKIEN SUCKS?!!!!

So I went thru a gazillion names,
and finally sifted out "shania",
which I thought was closer to "lahlia"

"shi bu shi shania?" (were u referrin to Shania?)

"ta de hokkien shi bu shi bu zhun de?" (Her Hokkien is it lousy one?)

"ying gai shi ba" (I think so)

"huh? wo gen ni jiang lah, ta bang wo zhao yi ge hao mah, hen mei de, jiu shi na ge manager liao.ni men chao de dao de mah. Ni cha cha kan" (it is the manager who found a really nice no. for me)

"Ni ke yi gen wo que ren yi sia ni men shi ji shi shuo guo hua de mah? hai shi ni na ge hao mah is na yi ge hao ma ne?" (cld u clarify on the no. or when did u speak?)

"ni check de dao de lah, wo hen jiu mei you ting dao ta de sheng yin le" (U'll be able to find out, it's been a long time since I heard her voice)

I wanted to slam his freakin face into the monitor screen.

I swear,
times like this,
I am most thankful we are not using 3G devices to take calls.

I cheaked thru his freaking million records,
does he even know he has 5 billion records?

and decided on a no. which I thot was very nice.

I asked him if that was the one he was referring to.

"ni check kan you mei you private no." (Is tt a private no.?)

shit.
At that moment,
my stupid humor chose to make its presence known,
and lovely nageb came to mind
(shall tell u tt story some other time. Has sth to do with a certain Scot, named McGregor)

Great,
tt no. does not haf the CNND.

I searched for the one tt has,
asked him if tt's the one.

"bu shi, na ge hen jiu le. Bi jiao xin de" (no, it's a newer no.)

BIG shyt.

I searched again.

I gave up.

"jiu shi ni gang cai jiang de loh. wo you mei shuo na ge hao mah shi private no."
(It was th no. tt u gave me just now. I didn't say it was a private no. wat)

&^%&^%$#*&

Great,
now tt we have determined the no.
I only have to uncover his riddle no. 2,
the identity of the manager,
then call transfer,
and my nightmare is over!!!

YESSSS!!!

"na jiu shi shania le, qing shao deng," (tt must be shania, pls hold on)

"deng yi xia.wo you mei shuo bu shi ta. Na jiu shi ta lo.ni wei shen me mei you gen wo na I/C he PIN no.?"
(wait!!!I did not say it wasn't her in the 1st place. It was her wat. Why did not ask to verify my I/C and pin?)

OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!

I swear,
when I saw the pop-up reminder tt he is "pin" cust,
I told myself
die die also must get pin then reveal info.

However,
once he spoke, all rational thoughts just fled.

That was the biggest mistake I cld ever make.

He nagged me on that for 10 min
"forgave me" for another10 min,
taught me to "not tell anyone abt tt mistake" for 5 min,
"acquainted" me with some of my colleagues for 10 min,
before allowing me to run off in search of Shania,

my salvation.

"Hi, is shania working tonight?"
I asked manager Mr. Bandaras.

"Oh, she left already. Why?"

Damn.

"Mr Ang lookin for her."

He turned back to his computer screen and pretended he did not hear me.

Shit damn.

A funny sound to the left drew my attention and I looked at the girl beside me.

She was smothering her laughter!!!!
"Shania will be back the day after. 2ml off"
Then she patted my back.

Shyt.
and I was once again reminded of Nageb.

So reluctantly,
I returned to my seat,
picked up my headset again,
and prepared myself to be mutilated.

For the next 15 min or so,
he tortured me with qns like

"Are u scared of me? There's no need to be scared of me one"

"forgave me" all over again,

lectured me on the "adult work politics"

and then asked the most ridiculous qn I have ever heard

"ni zai xiao shen me? Ni zai xiao wo mah?" (What were u laughin at?me?)

I almost dropped dead on the floor.

FOR GOODNESS SAKEss!!!!

I wanted to murder the man!!
To hell with a death sentence!!

I'm sure the satisfaction wld haf been worth it.

And I lied.

"wo be shi zai xiao ni.wo zhi shi fei chang gao xing, hen nan de you xiang ni zhe yang de ren da jin lai.zhe me friendly,zhe me yuan yi ba ni ren shen de jing yan chuan shou gei wo men hou bei"
(Of cos I wasn't laughin at u. I was just glad to get ur call. we don't get many pple like u, so willing to impart ur life experiences)

I must have picked up a skill or 2 from our very dear "enforcement division"

Anyway, he seemed pretty pleased with my ans.

Then he began torturing me again with questions like
do I know this person personally,
or do I know that person.
Was i angry with his "lectures" on my negligence,
my unwarranted fear of him,
everybody's fear of him,
how there is diff reactions when he calls in with a certain no.,
as opposed to another no.,
how punctual he is with his payments,
cos we have WONDERFUL service.

How CLOSE he is to our MANAGERS

And then the clock struck 10pm.

And he was back to "forgiving me" and "office politics"

I snapped.

"Mr Ang, hen bao qian, suay ran wo gen ni liao de hen kai xin, dan shi yao shi ni mei you ren he guan yu dian hua de wen ti de hua,wo bi xu gua dian hua le, yin wei wo hai you hen duo customers zai deng zhe jie tong."
(I'm sorry, despite the enjoyable conversation we were having, I'm afraid I have to hang up if u do not haf anymore mobile-related enquiry as there are many customers waiting to get thru)

And my second greatest regret was not having said that EARLIER.

By the way,
in case anyone's wondering,
he called us up to thank the said manager for helping him pick out this no.

Cos as a result,

HE STRUCK 4D TWO WEEKS AGO.

TWO WEEKS AGO.....
TWO FREAKING WEEKS AGO!!!!

On 2nd thoughts....
I should count my lucky stars tt he did not make me guess his telephone number from the winning numbers of the 4D draw.....

It was pretty romantic,
the idea of an animal kingdom amidst the cosmopolitan city,
beneath a tequila sunrise....
with a not-so-great sex on the beach...

Lured by the beautiful paradox,
the six unsuspecting females strolled into the restaurant.

Since September,
it has become a monthly affair for the 6 girls to handpick a date to gorge themselves silly on the finer food in life.

So this month,
we decided to spend our hard-earned money in this restaurant, Giraffe.

Everything was fine and dandy,
our appearances were not puke-inducing,
our behaviours were relatively more refined than usual,
our stomachs were grumbling like the most frustrated thunder
and some of us were oozing vinegar-jealousy over the make-over of a certain petite lady.

However, being superficial singaporeans,
we were pretty satisfied when we were ushered into the restaurant.

I have to say I was rather pleased with the service quality of the waitresses.
They were friendly,
smiling pple,
who accomodated us even when we requested for a change of seats from the classy interior to the alfresco area.

The food was a not-bad-imitation of fine dining stuff,
utensils and table arrangements were great.

In fact,
the atmosphere was so real,
complete with a selection of wine and cocktails somemore,
that I was almost lulled into believing that fine dining cld be available,
without blowing a hole in my pocket.

Until reality reared its nasty head.

We were so engrossed in our jealous appraisal of a certain petite lady
who suddenly underwent a 360 degree tranformation
from a housewifey-mother-of-four look
to a vibrant, innocent, come-and-try-to- taint-me challenge.

So out of the most malicious jealousy,
we decided to engage in the game of concentration.

Because the loser will have to drink,
and she sucks at that
and we were hoping against hope tt if she got drunk enough,
she wld tarnish her own reputation!!!

HAHAHAHA

Ok,
I was kidding about tt part.

She knows how much all of us loves her.
And she knows how eager all of us are to get her off the market
so tt her special someone cld take over the very tedious task of planning her 21st,
and we cld just sit back,
relax,
shed a few daintytears at her birthday
and sweet-talk her into believing tt her bf is the best gift we cld ever give her,
save ourselves a bomb for her birthday gift,
so we cld buy ourselves MORE nice,
red stuff from evil fashion stores.

HAHAHAHAHA

* sorry to digress.
Blogowner is too happy to get her internet connection back
courtesy of zee's filled-with-love-stingray-modem *

So we were happily fulfilling our own private fantasies when this
I-believe-she-is-constantly-dunned-girl-manager strode up to our table,
with this very ugly
I-think-I-am-the-most-drop-dead-gorgeous-woman-on-earth,
painted face,
disillusioned herself into thinkin that she was the most highly educated,
highly paid professor

"Can u all lower down ur volume, I can hear u all the way from the bar downstairs"

I do not remember that being phrased as a polite request
I do not remember the word, "please" in her demand
and I do not believe I have amnesia.

Granted,
we are not the kind of girls who stare into each others' eyes,
as we demurely slice our food and fork it daintily into our mouths.

All the more we aren't the type to hide girlish giggles
and coy smiles behind perfectly manicured fingers.

And we are definitely not undereducated,
act-classy,
ill-mannered,
low-intelligent restaurant managers
wearing cheap-allergy-inducing-4-inch-thick-cakey-expired-foundation
strutting around with her head held so high,
I was worried she might gag due to a lack of oxygen.

Sometimes we let out genuine,
hearty, laughters which are not the least bit lady-like.

I'm sorry if we do not fit into the common behaviours of imitators who frequent the place,
but then again,

I'd rather be an original Giordano white tee
than a pirated ralph polo.

I'm certain she would be disgusted with my view.

But then again,
I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

Lookin at how everyone's moving on with their lives
I suddenly feel like I am

Standing still.

I'm running,
away
when pple are running forwards

and I'm spinning,
in circles after circles
in never-ending circles
when pple are spinning outwards

Things look right,
but they always never are.

The 3 of us were begginers at the game of mahjong,
and because we were beginners,
we had "Mr. shifus" guiding us along.

She picked a tile from the stacks on the table,
and her whole face lighted up.
Excitedly, her hand flew to the row of tiles in front of her,
preparing to "showhand"

"NOOOO!!!" suddenly her shifu's hand shot out and grabbed hers.
"NOOOO!!!"He shook his head vehemently,
his eyes so huge it seemed like it was about to pop out.

The other 3 girls and their shifus paused in their consideration of their game and stared at the commotion before their eyes.

"Oh!!!"The light of understanding dawned,
she slowly put the card out, calmly reached towards the flower stack",
took a tile,
and blushed furiously.

Her shifu was laughing so hard I thought he had an asthma attack.

Puzzled, the rest of us leaned towards her to get a closer look at the tile which caused
the epidemic laughter.

We understood.

It was a chicken!!!
And she thought it was a bird!!!!!

Oh my god!!!!
The whole table laughed so hard it almost flipped!!!!

It was the funniest mahjong game ever.

EVER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So what happened was,
there was an "SP" chalet.

For those of u who don't know wat an SP chalet was,
here's the explanation.

In SIM,
during the orientation camp,
the organisers had this crazy idea of lettin every freshman have a secret pal,
of an opposite gender,
of cos.

So, an SP chalet naturally means 2 OGs who are SPs to each other organising a chalet together.

So we have this SP chalet.
I was very against it right form the start.
1st of all, I hate too crowded get-together, especially with pple I don''t really know.
2ndly, I don't have very good impression of my SP's OG.
then the night b4, my grp rep in the "organising committee" called me
to persuade me to go earlier, cos accordin to him, the other OG,
to avoid awkward situation went that night le, so the 2nd night's solely for our OG4 alone.

I was excited.
Cos well,
I thot I cld c Mr. Cramps

:P

I'm a superficial bitch.

As it turns out,
Mr Cramps had another chalet and he didn't attend this one.

But that's besides the point.

The main pt here is tt,
the chalet sucks.

Most of the other OG pple came back the 2nd night,
and I felt as if half the SRC(student representative council) pple crashed our chalet.

And they brought alcohol.
Bottles and bottles of vodka, gin, and others which I cannot identify.
And they started playing games with forfeit that I cld not stomach.

Being a lit student,
talking abt sex is ok for me.
Being a very sporting person,
I'll happily accept even the most embarrassing forfeits,
But the open-mindedness stops there.

Setting forfeits like kissing chest hair,
giving love bites,
licking the ears,
69 positions,
french-kissing for 15 minutes
and sucking the nipples,

sorry, is waaaaay out of my league.

Throughout the game,
I was really shaking.
Althoh I didn't get any forfeits,
it was a very tense game for me,
as well as the girls in my OG.

It was so tense,
I'm sure anyone cld tell the girls in my OG apart from the others just by the very genuine fear in their eyes.

Surprisingly,
my mum allowed me to stay overnight at a chalet for the first time.
And for the first time in my life,
I didn't take the offer of a further extended boundary.

We left ard 1am,
after escaping the very sordid room.
Yes, I'm using the word sordid.
The very sordid room and the vile activities that were going on in there.

Dont' get me wrong.
I don't think the activities are vile because they involve a sexual nature.
I think they are vile because it involves a sexual nature,
with ppl who are attached,
or even if they weren't,
with strangers.

Call me unsporting,
call me old-fashioned.
I cldn't and neither do I wish to fit into that crowd.
I'd much prefer escapin into the world of mahjong in the living room.

It was really a huge sigh of relief when we settled down into the living room to begin our mahjong lesson.
It was a collective sigh.

Lol~

The chalet was a failure,
at least where I'm concerned.

The only times I enjoyed myself was the before and after the chalet-
the fishing trip,
althoh we didn't catch anything.
and the Jalan Kayu prata supper we went to have,
after we left the chalet.

Satisfying.

And I have this sudden thought tt,
had Mr Cramps been there,
he wldn't have let things gone to such extremes.

Been gone so long I ALMOST forgot my password and log in ID.

:P

Anyway!!!

I was out last weekend,
and I suffered a huge blow!!!

Ok, no doubt my mum's more devastated than me but,
I was devastated too.

I was in town over the weekend,
lending "unconditional support" to one of my friends,
when I saw sth that shattered my heart.

I was just peering over the barrister
and then I saw him

HIM

PIGU MAN!!!!

with another girl, holding hands!!!!

**CAN U HEAR MY HEART BREAK??**

Thing is,
she's so plain!!

And tt's wat got me sputterin like an idiot!!!

I felt like I was suffocating on sour grapes.

*GASP*

I was pouting and sulking all the way hm,
pushed to the ends of my tolerance,
I sought refuge in my girl friend.

me:I saw pigu man.N he's attached!!
she:C lah!Ask u jio him don't want, now his pigu belongs to someone else le.
u can only c from far.

.........

so much for unconditional support.

Depressed,
I tried seeking refuge from my mum.

me: mee~U remember the guy we saw at J8?The one u said u liked v much?
mum: OF COS!
me: He got girlfriend le.

my mum is a real classic.

She dropped the piece of fish between her chopsticks
and whined!!

mum: HUUUHHHH???WHHHYYYY!C lah!!!I told u someone like him won't be single for long
de.....pretty not?
me:...no.Plain.
mum (looking very serious):!!!!How come?He looks like the kind who will go for chio bus.
me (in the mood): yah i noe!!I v bu shuang tt I lose to her.

*growls*

mum: Then how?Wat u plan to do?

!!!!

I looked at her.
Is she serious?
I put down my chopsticks calmly.

me: I will go and get the bikini pics from ping right now, and send it to him,
let him c wat he is missing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On a serious note,
pigu man is REALLY a gd catch.

A salmon among the ikan billis.

• Tall
• Dark
• Above-average-looking
• Decent and DAMN DAMN down-to-earth!!!!!(Look at the gf u'll noe)

*SIGHS DRAMATICALLY*

Despite the bitchy things I've said abt the girl and him (behind their backs of cos,n I don't mean them, of cos), deep deep down in my black black heart I truly understand y they r together. It takes a simple, kind heart to attract another. And tt's sadly sth I do not have. Lol~

I still can't believe someone like him exists!!!!!He really doesn't care abt appearance! I stilll can't believe my eyes. Must be the haze....

*salutes* There is hope for the male species afterall...

Gd-bye cute butt, I shall admire u, discreetly from afar.