Love is like a joke...

Spent the last ounce of my writing mojo rehashing one sentence for the past 4 hours, another writer's block seem imminent. Perhaps, I should just lay back on my chair, pour me a shot of whiskey, light a cigarette and clear my thoughts, but that's not my style. Cigarette smoke makes my curtains smell.

However, it in such moments, something in my head always light up, like a bulb, but a low voltage one since I'm into green technology. And emanating from that light this time is a realization of the co-relation between girlfriends and a joke. In many sense, girlfriends are a joke, but not in a derogatory manner lah.

Also, it's not the idealistic, pure version of girlfriend too but rather, the more 'manufactured' and 'commercialized' version. The one we were all thought or accepted in this day of age, whether you have the propensity or genitalia to be a girlfriend or not. Apologies, that was the Monash Commie side of me talking.

OK, OK, here's what I think. You know how when you tell a joke, it's funny, people around you laugh but there's always this party-pooper at the corner going, "Wait, I don't get it." And after a customary retell of the joke from the joke teller and, if necessary, followed by the voluntary attempts of explaining the joke by those who got the joke, the buffoon at the corner goes, "Oh, I get it now. Means, you're saying Siti Nurhaliza had taken off her tudung before, but in front of another man and not Datuk K, which she is not supposed to do, as an examplary Muslimin. Yup, I get it."

If you happened to be in a similar situation of this buffoon, you ARE a buffoon (too), and that although those around you are, genuinely, grateful that you got the joke, when in actual fact, you did not get the joke at all. You either get the joke once the joke is told or you just don't. You just have to know.

Now apply this to relationships, a girlfriend-boyfriend situation. Girlfriend can't decide on what to have for dinner, boyfriend throws in a few suggestions but nothing tickles her fancy. In the end, boyfriend picks the wrong choice of food and girlfriend ends up silently sulking. Boyfriend asks why she sulks but girlfriend says nothing. Nothing is never ever nothing to a girlfriend. You either get what your girlfriend says once she has said what she said or you just don't. You just have to know.

But in this girlfriend-boyfriend example, Japanese or Korean food would be a every boyfriend's wild card. If not, be it mamak or The Chicken Rice Shop, just take photos with your girlfriend. That'll shut her up. Too.

General Jamban

I like visiting my in-laws but the shit thing is, there is no place to park my car in that neighbourhood except for the neighbourhood’s communal toilet - a grassy patch stretch along the roadside, where all the pet’s from that neighbourhood and other neighbourhoods nearby pay their debts to nature.

You see, that’s okay when the sun is still your visual aid. But when night falls, the moon’s inherent ability as a visual aid pales in comparison, you see.

So, walking back to my car, I have to entrust my Blackberry to moonlight as a torch, which, in this case, provides little reinforcement to er, moon light, to somehow help me through this shit-uation. In a futile feat to navigate a clean path around the faeces convention that is present each night, one only can leave it to luck on whether one will end up with clean soles or unclean soles.

When luck is ditches you, it's better just to have one shitty sole.

Or better yet, one shitty sole that is not smudged on cat poo.

Or better yet, one shitty sole that is smudged on dried out cat or dog poo.

Or better yet, one clean sole but you’re not hopping into your own car.

A funny thing happened on the escalator...

My motivational levels have been running low lately, much like the excuses of our government to justify their ‘good governance’. My self-prescription for this rare condition of mine was retail therapy, after consulting my financial advisor in the form of an ATM, of course.

Retail therapy took just 40 minutes and in that 40 minutes, I bought two things which I don’t have time for these days - a toy and some books. After satisfying my mental state and having nothing left to spend, besides on a glass of teh tarik and on the parking ticket, I decided to leave.

With my new toy and books in a pink plastic bag hooked onto my index finger, I stepped onto the escalator, which will take me to the ground floor from the fourth. After a while I noticed everyone, on the opposite escalator - the one heading up - looking at me, before veering to the family in front of me and then back at me. Baffled, I looked at the family before me and saw what these people saw.

On that same escalator, there before me stood (what looks like) a Poh Poh or grandma, Kong Kong or grandpa, with their granddaughter and grandson (whom are still eligible for kindergarten, I think). Hooked onto this boy’s and girl’s index fingers was their own respective pink plastic bag and in those pink plastic bags, their own respective toy. Now, zoom out and see the whole picture, with me, holding onto my own pink plastic big that holds my own toy. Zoom out some more watch me as slide, quietly down, from the fourth floor to ground, with this family of four before me. I AM NOT THEIR GRANDCHILDREN!

Damn you, coincidence! Some times you’re on my side but when you put me in a joke, why must I always be your punchline? I wish I had the guts to pull out my phone, press it against my ear and shout, “Look, the kids miss you, okay! THEY MISS YOU! THEY ARE YOUR KIDS TOO! They are too young to understand what is D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Why don’t YOU buy toys for them the next time YOU spend time with them!”

(And repeat after, in the next flight of escalator, on the next floor.)