No, not the actual TV series; It's literally a series of unfortunate events that happened in my life over the weekends.
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| Flood aftermath |
On Friday night, I was just looking forward for my babe to arrive to spend the weekend together. Around 10p.m. at night, he called me and said, "Pack up, we are going to Penang. We are going to that flood relief thing after all. I'll be driving the Hilux.” That’s how I ended up packing some bare necessities for the night when I was all prepared to snuggle in the comforts of my warm blanket.
That was one of the recent unfortunate events No. 1.
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| Briefing by the volunteer team |
One of the members of my man’s car group initiated the idea of the flood relief efforts, and that very night around 11pm after we had drinks and light snacks, my man and his friends headed to a member’s house to load several 4x4’s with supplies; boxes of canned biscuits and bottled water, baby pampers, a few mattresses that we could spare. That took some time, and when it was almost 3a.m. in the middle of the night, we started heading for Penang all the way from Selangor.
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| Them Car Dudessss |
Being a car team, they have no shortage of people who could take turn driving throughout the night. We arrived early in the morning around 8a.m. and had breakfast before we were redirected to the flood relief center around Bukit Mertajam area. We placed our donated items at the centre, where the volunteers would later systematically distribute the items to housing areas. It was already about 11a.m. by then, and we headed for lunch. We were all tired and sleepy from lack of sleep.
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| (Y) |
Stopping by Ipoh for their well-known chicken rice was a good rejuvenation, and we just couldn’t wait to go home to a comfy bed and knock out for the next 15 hours or so. We started going back. It was raining, and that’s never good when we need to drive around.
That’s when unfortunate event No. 2 happened.
Now I don’t know if this happens outside Malaysia but we have conmen who might or might not like to pour oil on the road – it’s certainly oil, poured in random spots around the road. You can tell from the colourful spectrum of liquid on the tar roads – to make cars lose control and crash (especially on rainy days). One of the warning signs of such events would be parked towing trucks and several other vehicles just idling nearby.
At time of this upcoming event, my man was driving. I can tell you right here and now that I have mad confidence in his driving skills. He’s level-headed and plans out his best moves under many scenarios that could unfold before him very quickly. He was driving at the fast lane, driving around 80-90kmph. That’s between 50-55 miles per hour for you Americans reading this. We were already sticking pretty damn close to the divider when this black proton waja started speeding really fast in the lane next to ours and cut into our lane. Not slowly with signal lights either, it’s just like he decided to take a turn right there and then.
Pressing on the brakes a little while siding more towards the divider did not help when the driver ahead of us continued to be so motherfucking blind – I curse your family and you, whoever you are. May your socks always be soggy and your car always double-parked with no phone numbers left around for you to call in this Malaysian community. May your car get crashed really badly and your insurance expired by then, too late for you to claim for the damages.
AND TO ADD ON: This fucker did not even stop after that crash happened. Drove straight on like the driver was heading towards hell urgently with the Devil on his/her tail.
AND TO ADD ON: This fucker did not even stop after that crash happened. Drove straight on like the driver was heading towards hell urgently with the Devil on his/her tail.
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| Shit happens. |
Anyways, we crashed into the divider head-first. We probably spun like 2 rounds before we stopped, although we didn’t flip over. All the while I was looking at my man from the backseat, tried to see how he’s handling the situation. No excessive or exaggerated swerving. Controlled movements, no signs of panic. I was just waiting for it to stop, wondering if we were going to flip over and how bad the damage was. The other passenger at the front was asleep when it happened, and soon woke up to a slight panic attack. He couldn’t breathe, probably from the shock. One plastic bag later he was good again.
5 seconds later the towing truck people and several others knocked on our car window. An ambulance was also nearby but we told them we were good. No one was injured. I didn’t even knock my head against the glass or anything. We weren’t hurt. We drove to the side of the road and called the other drivers who were already further ahead. While they were making their way back to the Tanjung Malim area, we tried to convince the conmen that we didn’t need their help.
My man called his parents, asked for the insurance company contact number and requested the insurance company’s towing services instead. The conmen only left after we gave them around RM50. “Just give us some ‘duit kopi’ (similar to bribing) and we will leave you guys alone.” The damage was pretty damn bad, although it was limited to the front of the car. The front passenger side door couldn’t open more than a quarter of the way either. I remember feeling alright for a while; I remember it was still raining when his friends finally arrived and I was waiting in the car, away from the rain.
Then I looked out of the back window and saw oncoming traffic still passing by quickly even though it was raining and that hit of panic came.
That could have been the first and last time my man and I came to Penang, or any trips to anywhere in that case; If the black car earlier had driven any more recklessly and the incoming traffic was busier than how it was when we crashed, things could have turned out so much worse; When accidents do inevitably happen, he does damage control and protect the passengers, channeling it all towards himself. I could have lost him if the circumstances were any worse.
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| Photo we took a while after arriving in Penang |
Before I knew it, I felt a huge lump in my throat and my vision blurred through the tears. Hell, it’s all here again now as I write it. My man apologized to me and made sure I was really alright. It was just the aftershock, really, I explained. He had his friends fetch me back home while he waited for the towing truck and other procedures; claiming insurance, making the police report, see where the car was going to be repaired, go home and get scolded by his mother. Yep.
I called my best friend, asking if she could come over because I was still feeling shaky and I knew that the house would be empty when I go back. My housemates usually go elsewhere for the weekend. She was taking care of her grandmother and was alone at home too, so she couldn’t come. But she waited for me to be home and we had a video-call. I was calmer by then and it was all good.
That was another first, definitely. Being in a car accident. That’s No.2 alright.
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| Newly released but I didn't know that |
Then yesterday I had to drop my phone and get a crack on my screen… which caused the bottom half of it to be totally unresponsive. I couldn’t even unlock my phone. So at 8pm, I headed out to get myself a new phone.
This unfortunate event no. 3 is very minor as compared to the 1stand 2nd one, but well… That’s RM699 gone either way; Right after I spent about RM500 online shopping for my mother, myself, my man and myself. I had to dig into my savings account, but uh… at least I have a savings account I guess.
I bought this new phone, Huawei Honor 6A Pro, within about 40 minutes inclusive of the time I took walking to and back from the shopping mall. Day 2 of using it, so far so good I suppose. 3GB RAM sure is a plus point.
Anyhoo, let’s hope that the upcoming days will be better. Maybe I should really start wearing bright colours to avoid catching more bad luck.
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