2007 can suck it
The way 2006 ended and 2007 begins, this whole year can suck it for all I care.
On New Year's Eve' Eve, I lost control of my car on the way to the golf course. "Lost control" is such a mild phrase. The accurate way to describe it would be "f_cking steering didn't work and neither do the brakes". So my Toyota Corolla was drifting towards the right side of the road and straight at a group of walking girls. Maybe it is my innate character to take it easy, maybe it is years of playing racing games on the Playstation but for that one second before killing everyone concerned, I had a lucid thought:
"Option A - Killing innocent girls or Option B - Crashing onto the pavement?"
I don't know. Thing happened very fast but my brain took a look at the situation and said:
"Fuck it. Just go for the pavement."
So I swung the wheel as far right as I could go (idiot steering move the car by just that little bit) and the car missed the girls by some inches. The Corolla then ran onto the pavement like a drunk hippotamus. Now "pavements" in Laos are just a collection of debris, stones and cut tree stumps. So my nice car bumped through the debris and came into a complete stop like 2 inches before a concrete column and outside someone's house. Since the brakes didn't work, it was pure luck that the debris slowed the car down in time. (PS : Some christians will say that God looked after me. I would respond that if God looked after me, he wouldn't have failed the steering and brakes at THE SAME TIME and risked the lives of 5 girls. What's he trying to do? Test my reflexes and speed of decision making? Guess I showed him, punk!)
The five girls ran away screaming at the near miss.
You know what I was thinking when I sat there with holding the useless steering wheel when the car stopped. Three quick thoughts:
(a) You know those idiot driving instructors who always tell people to use the handbrakes in a emergency situation? BS!
(What absolute bullshit. You have less than a second to react. How to up your handbrake? People who tell others to use the handbrake in an emergency situation are stupid people who have never been in a split second, near crash situation).
(b) When reading the newspapers, I understand now what so-and-so driver meant when he said that he lost control of his car in an accident.
(c) ALL HAIL THE PLAYSTATION!
Months of playing Need for Speed (Most Wanted and Carbon) really taught you a thing or two about making decisions in near crash situations.
What happened afterwards is quite surreal also. The Lao owner of the house, who was sleeping, came out of his house and instead of verbally abusing me for crash landing a Japanese car in front of his porch, asked me kindly whether I was hurt and even helped me to change the damaged front wheel. His wife woke up groggily and then offered me a drink. HOLY SHIT. It was as if strangers crashed cars into their front porch at 6.30 am everyday.
(BAM)
Kind man (KM) : Yawn. Honey, someone landed their car on our front porch again.
KM's wife : Ok, I will go offer him a drink. You go help him change his tyre.
I mean, this is surreal shit, right? If this happens in Singapore, the average elitist Singaporean bungalow owner will come running out with all sort of vulgar expletives paying respect to my mother. And then, he will try to sue me for all sort of physical and "emotional" damage to his dog and claiming trepass. Would the average Singaporean care whether I am dead or dying? You know the answer.
May God (or whoever is up there) bless the Lao people for their simple kindness. May they never become Singaporeans like us, always apathetic and usually hostile; unless there are commercial gains of course. Turned out that KM is actually a Japanese who settled in Laos for the past twenty years. We conversed for an hour using broken Japanese, English and Lao. It wasn't exactly nuclear physics conversation but it was pleasant in view that my fat-ass car was marooned in his front yard like a beached whale or a half-sinking Spanish galleon.
As my friend came to pick me up and the Lao repairmen started to get ready to haul the car to their workshop (KM and I just couldn't get the car to start), I looked back and saw KM and his wife sweeping the porch and watering the plants which I barely missed. KM actually smiled and waved at me.
I am going out now and buy them the biggest f_cking hamper money can buy. For that one act of kindness shown to me by one Lao couple, I am going to donate rice, noodles and condensed milk to orphanages and primary schools out of my own pocket for the whole of next week.
On New Year's Eve' Eve, I lost control of my car on the way to the golf course. "Lost control" is such a mild phrase. The accurate way to describe it would be "f_cking steering didn't work and neither do the brakes". So my Toyota Corolla was drifting towards the right side of the road and straight at a group of walking girls. Maybe it is my innate character to take it easy, maybe it is years of playing racing games on the Playstation but for that one second before killing everyone concerned, I had a lucid thought:
"Option A - Killing innocent girls or Option B - Crashing onto the pavement?"
I don't know. Thing happened very fast but my brain took a look at the situation and said:
"Fuck it. Just go for the pavement."
So I swung the wheel as far right as I could go (idiot steering move the car by just that little bit) and the car missed the girls by some inches. The Corolla then ran onto the pavement like a drunk hippotamus. Now "pavements" in Laos are just a collection of debris, stones and cut tree stumps. So my nice car bumped through the debris and came into a complete stop like 2 inches before a concrete column and outside someone's house. Since the brakes didn't work, it was pure luck that the debris slowed the car down in time. (PS : Some christians will say that God looked after me. I would respond that if God looked after me, he wouldn't have failed the steering and brakes at THE SAME TIME and risked the lives of 5 girls. What's he trying to do? Test my reflexes and speed of decision making? Guess I showed him, punk!)
The five girls ran away screaming at the near miss.
You know what I was thinking when I sat there with holding the useless steering wheel when the car stopped. Three quick thoughts:
(a) You know those idiot driving instructors who always tell people to use the handbrakes in a emergency situation? BS!
(What absolute bullshit. You have less than a second to react. How to up your handbrake? People who tell others to use the handbrake in an emergency situation are stupid people who have never been in a split second, near crash situation).
(b) When reading the newspapers, I understand now what so-and-so driver meant when he said that he lost control of his car in an accident.
(c) ALL HAIL THE PLAYSTATION!
Months of playing Need for Speed (Most Wanted and Carbon) really taught you a thing or two about making decisions in near crash situations.
What happened afterwards is quite surreal also. The Lao owner of the house, who was sleeping, came out of his house and instead of verbally abusing me for crash landing a Japanese car in front of his porch, asked me kindly whether I was hurt and even helped me to change the damaged front wheel. His wife woke up groggily and then offered me a drink. HOLY SHIT. It was as if strangers crashed cars into their front porch at 6.30 am everyday.
(BAM)
Kind man (KM) : Yawn. Honey, someone landed their car on our front porch again.
KM's wife : Ok, I will go offer him a drink. You go help him change his tyre.
I mean, this is surreal shit, right? If this happens in Singapore, the average elitist Singaporean bungalow owner will come running out with all sort of vulgar expletives paying respect to my mother. And then, he will try to sue me for all sort of physical and "emotional" damage to his dog and claiming trepass. Would the average Singaporean care whether I am dead or dying? You know the answer.
May God (or whoever is up there) bless the Lao people for their simple kindness. May they never become Singaporeans like us, always apathetic and usually hostile; unless there are commercial gains of course. Turned out that KM is actually a Japanese who settled in Laos for the past twenty years. We conversed for an hour using broken Japanese, English and Lao. It wasn't exactly nuclear physics conversation but it was pleasant in view that my fat-ass car was marooned in his front yard like a beached whale or a half-sinking Spanish galleon.
As my friend came to pick me up and the Lao repairmen started to get ready to haul the car to their workshop (KM and I just couldn't get the car to start), I looked back and saw KM and his wife sweeping the porch and watering the plants which I barely missed. KM actually smiled and waved at me.
I am going out now and buy them the biggest f_cking hamper money can buy. For that one act of kindness shown to me by one Lao couple, I am going to donate rice, noodles and condensed milk to orphanages and primary schools out of my own pocket for the whole of next week.
posted by Captain Obvious at 10:56 PM
6 Comments:
Hey, you ok?
What happened to your chauffeur? why are you driving your own car?
I always drive my own car after office hours and on weekends.
I am ok. My car isn't. My wallet isn't going to be neither.
Be thankful you are still in a piece.
No insurance for your car?
Be thankful you are still in a piece.
No insurance for your car?
Only 3rd party insurance - meaning insurance covers me only when someone hit my car. This was what happened a year ago.
This time, there was no 3rd party involved. It is just me vs the payment. Damn.
Just got the bill. Going to cost me US$500. Yuck.
Sigh... not quite a good way to start a year.. but USD is low right now.
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