Tinker, Tailor

“You don’t give me a sense of security,” she whispered as I stroked her hair. Slowly.

It wasn’t the first time she said that to me.

The last time she said that, I asked why.

“You’re just… too… I dunno… I just feel that I can never have you.”

“But you have me now.”

But of course that didn’t address her insecurities.

So this time I kept silent. And I kept stroking her hair. Slowly.

“So I can’t see you again. We can’t keep doing this.”

So this time I kept silent. And I kept stroking her hair. Slowly.

Fiction.

The pig has flown. The impossible has happened. Yes, I stepped into a gay bar.

Be not dismayed, my straight young female reader, for I remain as straight as ever. And to my male gay reader: wait long long.

Being somewhat homophobic, and (I don’t mean to be repetitious) as straight as ever, it was never my intention to step into a gay bar. It just happened. Or rather, like many ‘accidents’ that ‘just happened’, it was really the result of some disingenuous scheming of the 3 female companions I was having dinner with.

“Where shall we go after this?” asked one.

“How about Taboo?” suggested another. They looked at me for any reaction, and found none.

“Have you been to Taboo?” one of them asked me.

“Nope. As long as it’s not too much trouble to get there and I can find a place to park, I’m okay.”

That was when my fate was sealed for the night.

It looked harmless enough on the outside. Or even as I walked in. The place wasn’t crowded, there were people standing around…

Then I saw 2 guys wrapped around each other.

And a guy at the bar checking me out.

And another guy.

“Did you guys just bring me into a gay bar?”

“Heeheehee it’s awesome right?”

“Can someone stand behind me so no one can come near my ass?”

I found myself a nondescript corner to park myself to observe the crowd. Since I was already here, might as well learn something from the experience.

What I found rather interesting was that there were a number of girls there, maybe 1 out of 7 or 8 people. A number of them were definitely fag hags (they tended to be plump and loud), but there were a few girls who were quite attractive. Maybe they just wanted to dance and have fun without having to deal with guys who were trying to grind up against them. My own friends were in that category.

Near me was a group of 7 or 8 guys with 2 fag hags. They were mostly camwhoring, making pouty lips and hugging or carrying each other - guys carrying girls, guys carrying guys, girls carrying guys - any and every combination you can think of.

Then I noticed one of the guys in the group. He looked like an ordinary Singaporean Chinese boy in his late teens, in a t-shirt and jeans. Except he was wearing a pair of sparkly golden 5-inch tall stilettos.

By then, my friends had gone outside for a while. On hindsight, I’m certain they left me just to see if I would get picked up.

“Why are you alone?” this young guy asked me with great concern in his voice, as if I was in dire need of company. Perhaps I was, but certainly not his company. He was from the same group as the stiletto guy.

“Waiting for friends,” I replied as uninterestedly as I could before facing away.

He stood around near me for a while longer, as I desperately texted for my friends to come back.

As the night wore on, the club got crowded.

I was then leaning against the bar, with my friends around me. But every now and then, someone would try to squeeze in to order a drink. They would inadvertently brush themselves against me. And every one of them was male (of course). If that wasn’t enough, the guy beside me would keep inching towards me and accidentally brush against me as well.

That was when I finally had enough of the asphyxiating nightmare.

Never again.

I was the last person in the queue at Starbucks when 2 Caucasians walked in and joined me in the queue. It wouldn’t have been much to talk about except that they weren’t exactly joining the queue - they came over pretty much sandwiched me before I could even react.

I would have been far less surprised if they looked like they came from a crowded third-world country.

Like the time when I was in the Dubai airport. I was in this rather long queue to the cafeteria that provided free food to transit passengers like me. Behind me in the queue was this couple from some north African or middle eastern country. What rather bemused me was that at every opportunity, either the husband or the wife would try to sneak ahead of me in the queue. As if they could escape my notice.

Eventually the husband managed to squeeze himself in front of me, and the wife was hoping to do the same. She saw a gap in front of me and then proceeded to fill it. I then slowly but purposefully stepped forward to the husband, put my hand heavily on his shoulder, stared him down while moving in front of him.

They got the message.

Some weeks later when I was at the same airport again, queuing for a taxi, a bearded middle eastern man in a grey suit tried to stick his luggage trolley in front of mine. I pushed my trolley ahead before he could cut my queue, and his trolley almost collided into mine.

“What’s the hurry?” he asked, as if I were the one trying to cut the queue.

“Exactly. What’s the hurry?” I shot back.

He laughed.

“You work here?” he asked me.

“On holiday. Visiting a friend,” I replied. “You? Working here?”

“I’m from here. But I’ve been working in the UK for the past 18 years.”

I asked him the same question I asked everyone there, “so do you like Dubai?”

“No,” was his swift reply. We soon parted ways and into our respective cabs.

But, back to the Starbucks queue in Singapore, where I got sandwiched by the 2 Caucasians.

On one hand, I wasn’t really offended because it was clear that they weren’t trying to cut into the queue. I just happened to be standing at the pastry display counter, and they were only trying to see which pastries to order.

On the other hand, I was somewhat annoyed because they had no regard for me. They treated me like a magazine rack that was getting in their way. And they kept bumping into me, but didn’t seem to notice at all.

Under normal circumstances, I would have bumped them back and said something like “hey, what’s this about?” except that this wasn’t a normal circumstance at all. This wasn’t a normal circumstance at all because the 2 Caucasians were 2 very tall and slim and hot and definitely-professional-models Caucasian girls.

“Where are you guys from?”

They suddenly noticed me. The magazine rack speaks!

“Russia,” said one of the blondes.

“Oh which part? Moscow? Москва?”

“No, Siberia.”

Wow.

“Здравствуйте,” I said, which is “hello” in Russian.

I expected her to be impressed. “What?” she said instead. My Russian sucked more than I ever knew.

Thankfully, it was my turn at the counter.

Did you ever study calculus, like differentiation and integration?

I did, more than 10 years ago when I was in secondary school. Like all the other kids, the teacher showed us some derivation thingy which we didn’t understand but it didn’t really matter. Like all the other kids, the teacher taught that integration is basically getting the area under the curve. Like all the other kids, I accepted that and was able to “do integration”.

And like all the other kids, WHY the area under the curve was integration was not intuitive to me.

Until this morning, when I was still in bed and half asleep and waiting for my alarm clock to ring when it all suddenly made sense to me.

More than 10 years late.

One

“On a scale of zero to ten, how would you rate her?” I asked Cheryl.

“Nine,” she replied without hesitation.

“Wah!”

“I don’t give tens,” she quickly added.

I raised my eyebrows.

Cheryl is pretty darned good-looking herself, and as a designer, she probably has good aesthetic sense. She’s been asking me to go to the barbecue she organised so that I could meet her “hot” and “gorgeous” and “tall” friend Sue who was definitely my type.

“Okay I’ll be there!”

And I was there, and so was Sue. While I wouldn’t have rated her 9 myself, she was indeed rather striking. My other friends who were there were all quite bedazzled, and kept bugging me to “go talk to her more lah! why are you sitting down here eating?!? Get her number!”

Of which I eventually did when I was about to leave, after a couple of conversations with her over the course of the evening.

That very night she texted me just as I was crawling into bed:

Hi this is Sue. Nice meeting you tonight. You are interesting.

You’re quite interesting yourself too, Sue.

Two

I first caught sight of her when she got up the bus. Secretly hoped (in vain) that she would sit beside me, but she sat 3 seats in front of me. Of course, since the seat was empty.

Then my stop approached, and I got up and walked towards the exit. She got up too before I reached her row. Our eyes met momentarily. Then we both made our way towards the exit, me behind her.

The bus reached our stop but continued on without stopping. We then realised that neither of us pressed the bell. Both our thumbs reached towards the button. Our thumbs met momentarily.

We got off the next stop, which was perfectly fine for me, since my place was equidistant from both stops, and I sometimes get off at the second one.

She, on the other hand, wasn’t quite sure what to do next.

“You look lost,” I offered.

“Yah! I don’t know which is the shortest way to my place!” said the damsel in distress.

And so started an interesting conversation between me and May as I led her through my neighbourhood that night. As I reached my block, we exchanged contacts, and she went on her way.

I emailed her a few days later, and her reply ended with:

Give me a buzz whenever you are free to have coffee or something!

I certainly will, May.

Three

At the bus stop on my way to work, I would often see this cute and artsy-looking girl. Shy-looking too, though I would sometimes catch her stealing a glance or two at me through my shades.

The thought did cross my mind a few times to say “hello” to her, but, maybe next time.

“Are you a game designer?” she said to me quite suddenly as we were getting up the bus.

“No I’m not. But what made you say that?”

“Oh the book you’re reading.” It had the word “game” on the title.

But it really didn’t matter. What mattered was that we were now talking. I soon found out that her office was moving the next week. And that finally compelled Tanya to speak to me.

I was going to say “hi” to you eventually, Tanya.

Four

I was standing all the way at the back of the crowded bus, and seated inches in front of me was this girl, whom I eventually noticed kept glancing at me.

In her hand was her mobile phone, and she looked like she was texting someone halfway. Being a busybody, I took a peek at what she had typed:

Hello

A little presumptuous of me, but it crossed my mind that the message was for me. But I pretended not to notice.

After a few minutes, she started typing again. When she was done, I took a peek again:

Hello. You are quite handsome.

That was when I knew it had to be for me.

She held the phone on her lap for a few more minutes, before she looked straight up at me, then showed me the message on the phone.

I wasn’t quite sure how to react, except to force a polite smile.

She typed some more.

Can I befriend you?

I suppose you could, Sandy. I suppose you could.

Quite a week, if I may say so.

SIX minutes before midnight, my phone buzzed. An sms from my godsis, wishing me a happy new year.

That clever girl, I thought, crafting her sms such that it sounded very personal, but clear to me that it was sent to everyone. She should know that I don’t care for new years and such. I didn’t reply.

FIVE minutes before midnight, my phone buzzed. I didn’t even care to look at it. Another happy-new-year. Hopefully I don’t get too many more.

Before long, quite suddenly, there was loud commotion everywhere. Then muffled shouting, second by second.

Here comes the countdown.

Then lots of shouting and screaming and popping sounds. Happy New Year. Happy Twenty Eleven.

I told myself that I should be writing 2011 instead of 2010 from then on, and half expected a few more smses. My phone soon buzzed a little differently. More new year wishes, this time through WhatsApp.

A few minutes after the buzz, it was time to clear away those greetings.

The sms 5 minutes before midnight turned out to be a friend telling me that her grandfather just passed away. I wondered what she thought of the happy-new-years she was receiving on her phone.

So this year, I was volunteered to organise the office Secret Santa nonsense.

Secret Santa isn’t something I particularly looked forward to, because I’d always end up spending too much time trying to find the right thing to buy.

And I always end up given something I don’t want. Like that too-large-for-a-mobile-phone-and-too-small-for-everything-else pouch that’s still in my office drawer since last December. And I can’t with a clear conscience give it away because I find it aesthetically beneath me.

Also, I’ve been trying to simplify my life a bit more in the area of inventory management - I avoid accumulating physical stuff so that I don’t have to waste brain cycles deciding where to store it, when to use it, when to clean it, when to dispose of it…

Not being able to come up with any acceptable excuse, I grudgingly took on the role of Secret Santa organiser. Which meant that I had to write everyone’s names on little bits of paper for the drawing of lots.

Then it occurred to that there are benefits to being the organiser.

Like, I could simply just leave out my name without anyone knowing. At least until the exchange itself, when I would probably get into a lot of trouble, which I decided I could do without.

So I came up with another idea -

After my name on the paper scrap, I added get anything I can eat.

It was simply brilliant. Whoever got my name would save a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of item to get me - some sporting good? something cute? some form of container? some tool? some decorative item? no need to waste time thinking - just get something edible.

And if the person happened to get something that I don’t eat (which actually happened to someone else - I bought 2 boxes of Marks & Spencer alcoholic chocolates for a colleague whom I later found out couldn’t eat chocolates), I’d just share it with everyone else (which was what happened to those 2 boxes of chocolates). Which means, no need for inventory management!

At the end, it all turned out really well for me.

The lucky colleague who was to get me food brought me a frozen tupperware of a chicken dish that his excellent cook of a mum made. (I loved that it was in a frozen tupperware because he didn’t wrap it which saved me the hassle of ripping away the wrapping paper.)

While it turned out that he brought the wrong chicken dish because he couldn’t recognise the right dish when frozen, it was still really delicious, and the whole office got to share the dish with me at lunch.

So the Secret Santa nonsense wasn’t too bad after all this time. Maybe I’ll volunteer to be the organiser again next year.

“If she has nightmares tonight, it’s because of me,” I said to my friend, before going to have some fun with his little girl.

“May I join you?” I asked the little girl as she was having her lunch. She glanced at me briefly, before completely ignoring me.

I sat myself down at the table, plotting my next move.

“Hmmm… I bet your name is… Claire!” I asked.

She looked up, beamed, and nodded her head.

Score!

It wasn’t long before she warmed up to me. I soon found out that she’s 6 this year, and she likes pink, and her favourite animal is the unicorn. And because she’s so cute, I successfully resisted the very strong urge to tell her about my favourite animal (see Me vs Kid). (Also, the dad was sitting beside me by then.)

The dad noticed that she was uncharacteristically friendly.

“Must be because gor gor (elder brother) is very handsome right?” he said to her.

She smiled shyly and nodded her head. The dad and I both laughed.

Such good taste at such a young age.

Just to confirm, I asked her again,

“Am I handsome?”

She nodded her head again.

Someone close to me asked me why I don’t write anymore.

It’s a question I ask myself ever so often.

I’m definitely much busier with work than I’ve ever been (thankfully more financially able as well), but it’s not like I don’t have time to write at all.

There were times I would sit down to write. There were times I would open my blog’s admin console to look at the big and white box in the Write Post screen ready to mesmerize you with my words as soon as I click on the Publish button. Except that most of those times, the big, white box stayed empty, and I ended up closing the window in defeat instead.

The more haunting question I ask myself is - has my life become less interesting? and thus I have less to write?

I hope not.

Despite my very heavy schedule, I can’t help but pen down a few of my thoughts on this YOG business…

Whether you like it or not, it’s hard to deny that our government and politicians had the best intentions for Singapore when they decided to bid for the YOG.

Sure, some of the implementation sucked - you had kids getting volunteered into this, and they were given terrible food. Sure, they might have overestimated local and international interest in the event. Sure, they tried (and are trying) to make things look better than they really are…

But opportunities like these happen only once in a lifetime. No wait, this particular one only happens once - there’s only going to be one first Youth Olympic Games (holding the second YOG wouldn’t be quite the same).

Imagine if we didn’t grab this opportunity. If YOG turns out to be successful, I guarantee the very same naysayers would then be saying things like “why didn’t our leaders have the foresight to go for this?” “aren’t they trying to encourage a bit of risk-taking - why are they so conservative?” etc. You can’t do anything right in the eyes of these people.

Whether you like it or not, we are hosting the Youth Olympic Games.

Whether you like it or not, there are many eyes watching us from the outside. (Maybe not as much as we’d like, but still more than any typical day.)

Whether you like it or not, it’s better for us if the YOG turns out to be successful.

It’s thus in our best interest to do our bit to make it a success.

Or at least shut up for now.

p.s. I’ve been watching some of the games, and some are pretty entertaining, but maybe that’s because I love sports.

I was walking home from the bus stop when I saw a girl who looked familiar with a bunch of friends at a barbecue pit near my place. I stopped and stared. Indeed it was Amber.

Right beside Amber was Phoebe, another friend of mine. I knew Amber through Phoebe, whom I knew years ago through the internet. I had to say hello.

As I chatted with them a bit, I noticed someone familiar at the next bbq pit. It was John, whom I used to play basketball with many years ago. I excused myself from Phoebe and Amber to say hello to John.

A few moments after I went back to Phoebe and Amber, a familiar voice said hi to me. It was Henry, whom I knew through the internet years ago, even before Phoebe. Both Henry and I met Phoebe for the first time at the same event. And as I found out not too long ago, Henry is also the cousin of my colleague Jane.

Henry explained to me that he was there because his girlfriend Esther is a close friend of both Phoebe and Amber, so I introduced myself to Esther. And as I found out not too long ago, my company was thinking of hiring this same Esther.

Then another familiar face appeared. It was Colin. Like Henry, Colin was there because his girlfriend is a good friend of Phoebe, Esther and Amber. I knew Colin years ago through basketball. We were in the same basketball group as John, the guy in the next bbq pit.

It’s a small world after all.

A friend was involved in a car accident.

Apparently, his car collided with another at a junction. No one was seriously hurt.

It was the other party’s fault. The other party was this young and reckless 21 year old dude who hit my friend’s car, even though my friend had the right of way.

* * *

Many of us have friends who drive who have been involved in accidents. I’m willing to bet that almost all of the time, when the friend tells you about the accident, they’ll be blaming the other party.

(Except maybe for those few who perhaps fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree.)

Even in situations where it was legally their fault, like when the car in front braked suddenly so they had no time to react so they ended up hitting it, it would somehow still be the other party’s fault.

“Dunno what they were doing in the car - they just braked out of the blue so there was no way for me to avoid them.”

“They purposely caused the accident by braking suddenly.”

So far, I don’t remember any of my friends saying things like:

“I screwed up. I caused the accident. It was all my fault.”

So if you’re ever involved in a car accident and you’re alive enough to tell me about it, don’t get too upset if I don’t show enough sympathy.

My favourite game on the iPad so far is Harbour Master HD. (They have a version for the iPhone/iPod touch, but it’s way more awesome on the larger iPad screen.)

On the screen is a harbour with 6 cargo docks - all you have to do is to direct the cargo ships into the docks to unload as much cargo from as many ships as possible. The game ends when any 2 ships collide.

Things are easy at the start, when you’re only dealing with 4, 5, 6 or even 7 ships. But of course, more ships start sailing in as you progress, and eventually things get pretty crowded and mayhem ensues when you get 15 or more ships of different sizes and speeds crowding the waters.

I love the game because it gives me this sense of control, this feeling of mastery, like I’m orchestrating some complex scenario, keeping track of different things going on at the same time.

Except that I suck at it.

My friends routinely get scores of over 70, and sometimes over a hundred. Me? I must have played it over 30 times today, and I think I managed to hit 53 once today, although more often a collision happens when I’m closer to 40. My personal best is an embarrassing 70.

Then it struck me. I love to multitask. But I suck at it.

I’m such a man.

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging too much.

Part of the blame lies with twitter of course. But if you have been following my tweets religiously, your religious fervour would hardly have been reciprocated.

This, I blame partly on Facebook - the status updates feature they have. The few lucky ones of you who happen to know me in real life and thus get to have a place on my friends list would know that I’m a somewhat regular updater on Facebook. Somewhat regular. (I’m not talking about my tinker tailor facebook account, which I never use.)

I started this blog partly as an outlet for expression. These days, with quicker and more convenient ways of masturbation like facebook and twitter, sometimes the romance and foreplay of blogging has just become a little too much trouble. Ah, the joys of our culture of instantaneousness and quick fixes.

Unless, unless you’re stuck in a situation where you have time, and you are, as mentioned, stuck. As I am right now, in an NTUC taxi crawling down the expressway, with 958 playing in the background. At least 958 is less annoying than 933. Ah, the annoyances of mandarin radio stations.

Stuck in traffic, somewhat annoyed and edgy, why not channel this nervous energy into the urge to blog?

Why not.

It’s that time of the year again, where Chinese everywhere are obliged to do things they don’t like to do.

Like visit their relatives.

At least that’s the impression I get from my friends, particularly those who are single and of a marriageable age.

(Of course, there are at least 10 reasons to hate Chinese New Year.)

“You don’t like it when relatives ask you awkward questions like ‘do you have a boyfriend’ or ‘when are you gonna get married’ right?” I tell these friends of mine. “Well, why don’t you turn the tables? Like, ask them awkward questions instead?”

Here are just a few sample questions you could use. Adapt them as you see fit:

“Eh Uncle, do you give Aunty any flowers during Valentine’s Day? Aiyoh you don’t love her anymore isit? Old already take her for granted ah?”

“Uncle and Aunty, are both of you happy together? When was the last time you made love to each other? Isit Uncle cannot perform anymore ah? HAHAHAH!”

“Aunty, does Uncle cheat on you? Does he have any China girl friends? This kind of things you never know - must be careful!”

“Uncle, so how are your investments doing?
Aiyoh so terrible ah? / Wah not bad hor! Must open some Martell to celebrate!”

“Aunty do you send your son for swimming lessons? Piano? Violin? Ballet? This kind of thing very important leh. Shouldn’t deprive them. I know this family who also send their son to tap dancing classes and poetry lessons. And the gifted education prep school.”

“Uncle do you think your daughter will ever amount to anything?”

Have a fun CNY

“Would you like me to introduce you to my cousin? She’s very pretty…”

This was only the second time I met this lady, and she was already offering me her pretty cousin. I must have done something right.

“Is she pretty?” a pal of mine asked about the lady made the offer, after I related to him the incident.

“Not bad actually. But she’s married, with a 5 month old baby.”

“Then her cousin must be really pretty. Go for it!”

I paused a while, trying to comprehend his logic - the cousin must be really pretty because she herself is pretty and she says the cousin is very pretty. Kinda makes sense.

“Nah, I botched it.”

“You botched it! How the hell did you botch it?”

That was easy.

Right after she offered to introduce me to her cousin, I asked, “So how many pretty cousins do you have?”

“Two…”

“How old are they?”

As she paused to think about their age, I interrupted her.

“Are they above sixteen?”

“Yes…”

“OKAY ON!”

She stared at me, slightly horrified, slightly speechless.

“Why? If they’re both above 16, and both very pretty, of course I’ll want both!”

“Did you see her?” my friend elbowed and whispered to me after the woman who just passed us was far enough away.

“Yep I saw.”

“She must be around 50!”

It was a big deal to my friend because she dressed like she was 22 - long flowing brown hair, heavy makeup, tight t-shirt and very tight pants.

“Yep, and she happens to be my neighbour as well.”

Stunned silence from my friend.

That was a week ago.

Today, it was my turn to be stunned.

On my way home, I saw her get on the bus I was on, followed closely by a guy.

They sat together, joked with each other a lot, and leaned a little on each other every now and then.

The thing is, I know this guy. He’s 22.

Blog more posts with more words.

I’m sitting in Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon, and I happen to be staring blankly in the general direction of this youngish guy who is staring into his laptop when he suddenly looks up and our eyes meet and he smiles shyly and looks away then whispers to his guy friend sitting across him who soon turns back to take a look at me.

WHY?!?

It seems like the older I get, the crazier I become.

Which isn’t very normal, since most people tend to mellow down as they age. They become more conservative, engage is less risk-taking activity, and generally become more boring.

I can’t say that I’m that old yet - still a long way from middle age, not even eligible for an HDB flat unless I get married, which isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Then again, teenage girls still have crushes on me. (And boys too.)

Instead of getting myself involved in high-risk activity with underaged kids, I take up something relatively less risky - rollerblading.

I was never particularly interested in rollerblading (I hate the term ‘in-line skating’) as a teen, but for some reason I decided it was time for me pick it up.

Perhaps I wanted to learn to ice skate, after watching over many days in subconscious envy many ice skaters gracefully gliding round the rink, and learning to rollerblade would help me learn to ice skate, or perhaps I wanted to rewire parts of my brain by learning a new skill - the result of reading too many neuropsychology books.

In any case, rollerblading it was.

At the rollerblade shop, the cute shop assistant almost convinced me to buy more than I planned for. I was already prepared to leave with the big yellow cardboard box containing my new pair of rollerblades, but she told me the importance of the knee pads. And elbow pads. And wrist guards. And helmet. To protect that fabulous brain of mine.

But that same fabulous brain decided that, someone grown like myself with significant self-control would rollerblade safely, and any fall would be minor enough to render those equipment superfluous.

Which proved to be true the first few times I rollerbladed, since anyway my balancing abilities was so pathetic that I would have fallen if I had gone any faster.

In fact, in my first ever session one night (I only blade at night to preserve my anonymity), I never fell at all. There were plenty of close calls, but no falls. Nor did I fall on my second night. Nor third.

Within a couple of weeks I was already doing decently well. In fact I was already as good or even better than this friend who had far more blading experience whom I subsequently sometimes went blading with. Incidentally this friend wants to get an HDB flat with me, and I have so far declined, but that’s another story.

As they say, pride comes before a fall.

One night, I decided to venture up this very long slope near my place. As a kid, my parents would warn me against cycling or skateboarding down that slope because it was simply too dangerous - too many other kids had met serious accidents going down that legendary slope.

Which meant that I had to rollearblade on it.

Being a beginner, I decided to blade down only a quarter of the slope (about 30m), which would be quite safe. And down I went.

Within 3 seconds, the rate that my speed was increasing was so high that my brain was going overdrive trying to figure out how to slow down.

I couldn’t use the rollerblade brake pad because the speed was already too fast and the road would wear it out in no time. I eyed the grass patch up the kerb on my left but I’d be sliding on the grass for quite a distance while collecting a whole lot of mud on my butt.

The obvious choice was just to make a right turn, as gradually as the width of the road would allow, and go back up the slope and let gravity slow me down.

So I turned right. But I was going so fast that I couldn’t stay controlled enough to make the U-turn. Instead I was hurtling towards the refuse centre, otherwise known as the rubbish dump. And just as I crossed over to the right side of the road, my right rollerblade went over one of those tiny reflectors embedded in the road. Well, they’re tiny for a car, but not so tiny for rollerblades.

The reflector did it. I spun around in high speed before landed on my ass. The momentum ensured that I didn’t just land on my ass - I slid for another foot or so.

The first thing I did was to make sure there were no eyewitnesses. With my ego intact, I examined my ass.

It turned out to be easier than expected because at the exact spot I wanted to examine, the fabric from my pants was conveniently torn away, revealing my bleeding ass. It was burning hot.

It’ll be a while before I visit that slope again. Maybe I should take up knitting.