16 Dec started out as any nondescript day during the december holidays. I went for a swim, had a heavy lunch of thai food and took a long nap. I woke up, slacked around and watched tv. But things got a bit more hawok after that.
When it was 10.15 pm, I met Kenough at my place and we made our way to Wala's to buy 3 doz chicken wings for luke's surprise birthday celebration under Melia's precise instructions. However, before going to Wala's, I stopped by Kelly's place (while she was in Hokkaido) to write her a note in the Nigella's christmas cookbook I got her the week before and leave chocolates on her desk. The chocolates was a last minute decision because I thought it would be nice for her to come back and find chocolates left on her desk, on top of the christmas note I left her. More importantly, it would have been weird explaining my purpose of going to her place to her maids if I just went there to write the note; true enough, her cousin who is living with her temporarily opened the door and asked me what was the surprise and I vaguely told her I got some chocolates and was leaving her a note while heading straight for her room.
Once my first mission was complete, I embarked onto the next mission to get the chicken wings with Kenough. Once this was done, we arrived at Luke's 10 min before the stroke of midnight to prepare for the surprise birthday party. 3 funny things happened during the wait to emerge from the basement to surprise Luke. 1) Malik was
somehow talking damn loudly despite Luke's presence just a few metres away upstairs. 2) Luke was talking to El from hell on the phone while the clock was going to strike midnight despite Melia's
near-violent protests. In the meantime, we were raring to go upstairs with his cake in a contingent led by his mutha. 3) Luke's mutha got tired of holding the cake as he was still on the line and passed it to Malik (yes, Malik again), who
somehow made a series of ridiculous noises while putting the cake down. Thankfully, everything fell into place once Luke was done with the call and we proceeded successfully with the surprise party.
The most hawok thing that happened took place at 3.15 am. After sending Andrew and Malik home, Luke dropped me at my car which was parked some way down Ladyhill Road to ensure that the birthday surprise was complete. I decided to reverse back to his house instead of doing a troublesome three-point turn. However, a lethal combination of bad luck and terrible oversight on my part by not moving further away from the curb before turning my wheels right to reverse along the centre of the road caused the front left rim to be violently and thoroughly scraped along the curb. I knew from the sound of the scraping that it was a bad one, but only when we surveyed the damage a minute later did I realize the insane extent of the damage. There were 4 options available to me in order of attractiveness: 1) Steal an unlucky fellow's rim from an HDB carpark 2) Get it repaired in half a day before my dad comes back 3) Admit liability to my dad 4) Hope he doesn't see it. Option 1 was the quickest and cost-free (I was assuming we wouldn't get caught) but it failed because even Luke's weight could not force the tool to unscrew the rim nut. Option 3 would be a life sentence on my driving skills and reputation with my dad being Judge Dredd; hence it was the second last resort. Option 4 was the worst option because any blind man could see the fucking butchered rim from a mile away. Option 2 was my best bet then.
Option 2 was proceeded with following Luke's recommendation of this car workshop in Sin Ming called Yew Lip, which in my opinion should be called Yew 'Messiah' Lip. The boss's fair and well-spoken daughter goes by the name of Angie Soh, which should be changed to Angie 'Mother Mary' Soh. Although we couldn't reach her for the better half of the day, our persistence paid off at 2.30 pm when Luke finally got her on the line. She remembered his voice instantly and also his name. However, there was long waiting list. After I explained the situation briefly, she said in the most reassuring manner to 'just drive down and I'll see what I can do'. We drove down and after inspecting the rim, she said in the same reassuring manner that she 'knew what to do' and that it could be done by 6.30 pm. In the meantime, I bought a few beers to celebrate the favourable outcome of the 'Bonnie Situation' and Luke, Melia, Kelvin and I chilled in the pool with floats and our beers. The car was done by 7.15 pm - the job was done perfectly according to my specific instructions of the damage to be rectified yet not being made to look too new so as not to arouse my dad's suspicions.
The mystery that remains unsolved is whether Angie agreed to go out of her way to help me get the car fixed due to her kind nature, my convincing, Luke's recommendation or because she secretly likes Luke. Perhaps it's a combination of the above. We ended up arriving half an hour late for Luke's birthday dinner at Longbeach with everyone else waiting. I felt really bad for making everyone wait, but was relieved that things turned out better than I could have hoped for. And of course, my dear friend Luke's (ok Melia, you deserve credit for this too since you were dragged onto this adventure while suffering from a terrible 'headache', haha) invaluable company and assistance on 17 Dec is a perfect manifestation of the ancient adage 'a friend in need is a friend indeed'.
