The Butch In Me

I had the most delectable Ton Katsu at Tonkichi today. Caught up with Cindy and Gerald for an all-too-brief lunch. Cindy had to rush off and I hitched a ride from Jinesh to school.

Yes, I went to school to study today.

And yes, I actually accomplished what I set out to do..which admittedly is not very much.

We drove to Bugis and dropped off Cheryl and Christine, who were on a jeans-hunting expedition, and then the real adventure for the day began.

It all started with a nice bag with an ugly logo. Jin needed to get the broken strap repaired and apparently the best place to do that was this market along Old Airport Road that has 2 levels. The ground floor is filled with hawker stores of every persuasion and the second level consisted of a big open space and a smattering of kinky shops including a "MEI LAN DEPARTMENT STORE", shops stocking merchandise that wouldn't look out of place in a Pyongyang store...you get the idea.

Having dropped off the bag, we went down to sample food, and must have been accumulating bad karma, what with the incessant bitching, laughter and me periodically spitting soursop seeds from my lemon soursop drink onto the floor (I mean what do you expect me to do with them right?).

I say this because, well, when we finally got into the car and wanted to drive back to meet Cheryl in town, the car wouldn't start. The air-con, lights and radio would come on, but so would ALL the warning signs on the control panel.

Apparently the car had run out of water and the battery had died and needed to be shocked, or whatever term is used to describe the process of attaching clamps to the positive and negative signs of the engine.

We faced the immediate problem of not knowing how to open the, as Rihanna Fenty so eloquently puts it, "hood" of the car. Yes, we did not know how to open the bonnet.

After a flurry of phone calls to various people, Jin somehow figured out how to open the hood and what we needed to do, ie. clamp the relevant positive and negative signs and attach the other end of the clamps to another car's + and -

2 problems.

(1) We couldn't find the + and - signs in his engine.
(2) Which sucker would let us use their car?

I approached a man waiting in his car and asked for his help in locating the signs. Let us call him Mr Asshole.

Me:"Excuse me, I was wondering if you know how to find the positive and negative signs...."
Mr Asshole:"There's a plus sign and a minus sign. Go and look for it..."

WOW THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR HELP! Go run over a former French president la.

Luckily, after a good 45 minutes of waiting and waffling, Jinesh spied this helpful looking fat man driving a beat up Toyota. I mean, when you need to borrow someone's car battery, who's more likely to let you use it, the driver of a shiny Mercedes or a beat up Toyota?

Precisely.

Jolly fat man drove up next to Jin's car, located the + and - signs, and let us use his battery. Having done that, we were able to drive to the station to get the car filled with water.

Anyone who knows us will find the images of the two of us - standing by a car with the bonnet up, holding these long wires with clamps on either end, having no idea what to do or what we were doing, flipping through the pages of a car manual - utterly hilarious.

I remember thinking that I was in a Rihanna-esque situation - the only difference being that she would probably be able to repair the car - as she slams down the hood and urges you to "Shut Up And Drive".

And I got my butch moment when I tapped the clamp against the positive sign and caused sparks to appear...and when I DIDN'T scream/exclaim/make loud noises like I did while watching the Lakehouse.

I'm so proud of myself, and I'm sure someone else would be proud of me too =D

Anyway, we finally drove down to the NLB and found Cheryl, who apparently just arrived from her shopping. Relocated to Spinneli's for an hour, where we tried to study but well, haha.

No worries. Will be in school tomorrow for the best part of the day to study. Yes yes.