Sirens

I was driving along PIE today when I got edged out of the right-most lane, on account of being too slow. As I filtered to the left, I cast an evil eye on the 2 consecutive sports cars which overtook me, hoping the police would pop out at the next bend all ready to do a speed check.

Then, this ambulance made the grandest of entrances, swerving in from a filter lane, sirens all a-blast, racing to whatever emergency was currently summoning it. And I selfishly, bitterly chuckled, thinking about how the sports cars were about to be forced out of their lanes too.

Oh, woe be me and my wicked soul.

For the two cars immediately slowed down, filtered left and allowed the ambulance to pass. Totally unlike the malicious, snobbish and delinquent drivers I thought them to be.

You know when you get all sappy from something as commonplace as the above incident, that you really need to get out and watch more violent, gory movies. Or at least find some other way to get a testosterone fix.

Handymen

I have met many friends over the past few weeks who seem to have the utmost fascination as to how I am still not bored out of my skull. They know that I do tuition, rollerblading, writing, reading and gaming these days, but they are still amazed as to how I manage to fill up my hours with meaningful tasks.

My reply usually is, you just need to know where to look.

Take for example today. Against all odds, with only 13+ years of formal education on my side, I managed to outwit and ultimately crush a longtime foe of the House of Leong. And no, it was not a cockroach.

It was a grueling battle. When I was locked in mortal combat, straining to gain the upper hand every second of the way, I was hardly cognizant of the way time was slipping away in the real world. Not a moment passed when fatigue did not threaten to overcome my ailing body.

The moment a strategy I was trying to employ showed signs of failing, I would scramble to construct a new game plan whilst maintaining a calm and collected exterior. No doubt, every whit of the self-mastery I gained in the Army was crucial in avoiding a most dire outcome.

In the end, I stood victorious over my fallen foe, victim of an eleventh-hour stroke of genius. Yes, I had done it. I had outwitted a toilet bowl.

For all of you just BURSTING to laugh at me, go lift the cover off your toilet bowl and have a peek inside first. How many parts can you name? Can you work out how the mechanism functions? More importantly, if it was spoilt, could you fix it?

My mum had been the first to suspect that something was not too right with the bowl. On closer inspection, I was aghast to find that an Error 204 had occurred. In layman terms : A Systemic Mis-Alignment of the Input Triggering Terminal and the Tension-Sensitive Hydraulic Output Sphincter.

Or, just in case you're not older than six, the handle and the pump were disconnected. My money's on the fact that there are a number of you who are already lost, yet who still laughed at me a few paragraphs ago.

What occurred to me was this. One day, when I move into a house of my own, I will be assuming full responsibilities as the resident Handy Man. My wife would have probably stated this as a pre-requisite in her pre-nuptial, and in any case too many people underestimate the importance of being able to maintain their own house.

I shudder and pray I never degenerate to the point where I have to call the plumber or electrician or gardener for every single little thing. My mum was right way back when she forced me to clear the maggots (see previous post), citing the need for me to learn to upkeep the house.

And by golly she was also right 13 years ago, when she warned me that if I didn't study hard enough I wouldn't even have the brains to fix a toilet.

Mums can be so right at times, don't you think?

Music

When my aunt needed my help to bring my cousin to piano class, I thought, hey, how difficult can that be? After all, I've had plenty of practice as the family chauffeur ever since I got my license. It would be a simple matter of fetching her to class, and then bringing her home.

Or so I thought.

It turned out that parents (or in my case, cousin) had to accompany their children (cousin) through the course of the lesson. My aunt said that the idea was to help the young ones along with their practice, to guide them should they need it. Me, help? Man, ask me about scales and I'll point to a fish. But I had already agreed, so off I went.

Sitting in piano class again after so many years brought back so many memories. I remember being bundled off to piano class when I was younger, in an effort to 'equip me with a life-long passion for music'. My piano teacher was optimistic about me at first, saying she could see potential where I knew there was none. My parents mercifully stopped the lessons when they found my teacher, after class one day, sobbing and trying to eat her scores.

I do regret, of course. As things turned out I did acquire a passion for music, yet I remain as musically-illiterate as the day I looked at my first score sheet and thought, hey, what cute tadpoles these are. Therefore I am restricted to always having to nod like mad and pretend I know what is happening when friends talk about Chopping or Baytoeven, or go green with envy when others just seem to elicit the sweetest tunes effortlessly from pianos and guitars and whatnot.

When it's my turn to have children, I would have had the advantage of understanding child psychology though. I will buy a grand piano, store it in a secret room with a 'Do Not Enter' sign on the door, and tell my kids never to enter. Freak, I'll even rig it to dispense sweets every time a piece is successfully rendered. That way, my kids would naturally rebel and practice secretly, and grow up with the skills I wish I had.

If my kids turn out to be really gifted musically they might end up diabetics, but oh well. You can't have everything.