I know that Ramadhan is supposed to have taught me the skill of self-control, but a couple of nights ago I was in a serious, desperate, almost deranged need to burn some rubber. Ummi had wanted to take over the wheel from me, but mercifully let me drive because she saw I was holding it all in and blasting my way down the Federal Highway at 1am was the only way I’d cool off.
Driving 30km in the middle of the night to do someone a favour only to have the person complain her head off can do that to you. Thank God this someone was no friend of mine, but a business friend of Ummi’s. If not, I’d have long given her a piece of my mind. But out of respect for the, ahem, elderly (padahal umur dia mungkin masih dalam lingkungan 30-an kot) I bit my tongue, shut my trap and concentrated hard on finishing my (already overdue) book.
Ummi kept on telling me to slow down the entire way home. I should have taken her advice because minutes later I got pulled over by the police at a checkpoint. It had nothing to do with my speeding because the officer peered into the car after I had rolled down the window and waved me away. But I was stiff scared though. Tulah. Lain kali dengar cakap mak.
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Confession time.
I’m bad at telling the difference between vegetable leaves. And I mean, really bad.
The only thing I can pluck confidently from Ummi’s little garden is her daun pandan and her daun limau purut. Yang lain, jangan nak harap I’ll get it right the first time around.
So last night Ummi told me to buy some sawi. I walked into the shop, fingered the only sawi-looking vegetable I saw and decided to ask for another stalk because the one on the shelf was droopy and looked sick.
I held it up in the air, turned around and asked the shopkeeper cooly:
“Pakcik, takde sawi lain ke?”
He looked at me, then at the vegetable I was holding before looking at me again.
“Sawi? Itu kailan.”
Malu woo.
(Although I have to say, I covered up my ignorance pretty good by feigning a brief lapse of judgement.)
Enough said here.
