Clairine

Today I did something really stupid. Something unbelievably stupid. You can try to guess what the stupid thing I did was. But I’m sure none of us are perfect, and we all tend to make stupid mistakes from time to time. In fact, I’ve done my share of stupid things so far in life. If I can recall some memories, I think that I could make a list of all the stupid things I’ve done in my whole life. Let’s start with the least stupid thing.

10. Drank a mouthful of water while my friend was telling a really funny joke.
9. Bought a pair of expensive heels only to find it being sold at 50% off two weeks later.
8. Overdosed my face with pimple gel and ended up burning the skin off three-quarters of my face.
7. Showing off my amazing Cantonese skills by trying to name all the furniture in my classroom. (I called the table a "teng")
6. Giving myself a haircut, thinking I’d be better at it than professionally-trained hairstylists.
5. Sticking my pen drive, even after knowing that it was infected with a virus, into my laptop. (I honestly don’t know what I was thinking)
4. Stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake when turning out from a corner, upon noticing an oncoming car in the opposite direction. (Yes, I damaged the car, very badly indeed)
3. Proudly running out to buy a surprise birthday cake for my friend, utterly forgetting that she’s allergic to eggs.
2. Using body shower gel to wash my hair and shampoo to wash my body. (Must’ve been drunk, ha..ha..)

And the number 1 stupid thing is…

Well, I did it today. I never truly had an ultimate stupid incident. Most of the incidents were usually just embarrassing, and not too extensive, neither was it too expensive. But today I truly broke all my records in the "Clairine’s Stupid Moments Hall of Fame". The number 1 stupid thing is:

1. Today, I pumped diesel instead of petrol into my mother’s 1 yr old Toyota Altis.

Truth be told, I’ve never pumped petrol in my whole life. I’ve only seen what a petrol station looks like, I know that there’s a hole in the car to put petrol inside, I know that you gotta pay the person behind the window, and … I know that petrol is expensive. That’s all I know. I don’t know how to pump petrol. And for a stupid person like me, I thought diesel is petrol. Well, I guess I’ll remember for the rest of my life that

DIESEL ≠ PETROL

My car actually managed to go 8-10 km, I think, before sputtering and jerking, then finally, dying. However I managed to swerve my dying car to the side of the road to the emergency lane. Frantically, I tried calling my father, and his phone was off. I called my mother, who wasn’t at home, and couldn’t help me because, duh-she-has-no-car, and finally I dug up a service station number from the depths of my car and called it. To my absolute horror, the guy was speaking Cantonese. A shouting form of Cantonese. Cantonese has many forms. It has the soft and very "teh" form. It has the stop-start-stop-start form for those who don’t know how to speak it properly (ahem, like me). It has the fierce and angry form spoken by the Hong Kong Triad gangs like in the movies. And it has the "shouting form" spoken by… the tow truck guy who called me to find out where I was stuck on the highway.

So, anyway. With my amazing Cantonese, I managed to direct the guy way off the place where my car was. So instead of reaching me in half an hour, like he promised, he ended up taking a whole hour, since I gave him such accurate directions. I even locked myself in the car, with no air con, and I couldn’t wind down the windows, cos there were some freaky-lookin guys standing around the side of the road. They knocked on my window pane a few times, asking if everything was ok.

Freaky Guy: *knock knock knock KNOCK KNOCK* Halloh??? Amoi, semua ok ah?
Me: Huh?
Freaky Guy: *knock knock knock KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* Amoi buka pintu lah. Kereta rosak kah?
Me: Oh! Semua ok! Semua ok!
Freaky Guy: Yakah? Habis kenapa kereta tak jalan?
Me: Semua ok! Semua ok!
Freaky Guy: Lu sure kah semua ok??? Buka pintu lah!
Me: Ya semua ok! Semua ok!
Freaky Guy: *continues staring at me*
Me: :o)

After staring at me for a long time, Freaky Guy left. *sigh* Maybe I am too paranoid and cautious. Oh well. After calling like half a dozen people, finally Eileen sent Edwin to come and "rescue" me. Hahah. After that the story gets really long and boring, so I’ll spare you the details.

So now you must be wondering, why did I title this entry "Stupidity: A Paradox"? Well, while I was waiting at the side of the road for the tow truck to come by, Bank Negara Malaysia called me. I was wondering what on earth BNM wanted to do with me. In fact, at that moment this thought ran through my head:

Maybe they want to give me a certificate to congratulate me for surviving their gruelling, mind-consuming, torturous interview.

I wasn’t prepared for what the lady told me. She told me that I got the full scholarship to go to the United States to study. Quite in shock, I asked her if she had the right person.

So there you have it. Stupidity… A Paradox.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 8th, 2006 at 1:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.