Sudah jatuh, ditimpa tangga

It wasn’t as bad as what the title suggests but you know me, I like the drama and the element of surprise. Once in a while, need to practice a bit of Bahasa. This particular entry has all the element of humor, action, thriller and hmm..romance (just a tad). It happened all in a Sunday. The day started out with a lot of promises. I got up pretty late due to a late night doings the night before. H suggested that we grab something light for breakfast and then go to the mall for a bit of grocery shopping and lunch. We did that and as we were leaving the mall and going to the car, my sis text me and said that my dad has been bitten by a snake. How’s the story so far? What did I tell about drama eh? It’ll only happen in my family. Trust me. Okay back to the story. Imagine my thoughts then and all sorts of emotions and feelings were running through my head at that time , I am surprise that it didn’t explode and there goes Wan’s brain all over the sidewalk ( I know, I miss saying that!). But it didn’t. I called my sis immediately and asked her to explain to me what had happened. She said that Mom asked Dad to fix a water pipe at the back of the house. He did that it seems. Dad is the so called handy man in the house. He is also the carpenter. I remembered all the wooden stools that he had created with his bare hands and some tools of course. They were sturdy and have unique designs that will put an artist to shame. The same goes for the plumbing and pipes around the house. It will function well but one glance you won’t say that it’s a pipe. Most of them look like an exposed car engine. You get what I mean. My family will always tease him about it and he will laugh with us. We do this with love, mind you. I remembered his latest creation - multi-tier water pipes at the kitchen sink. The top one is for unfiltered water and the bottom for filtered. You can actually see the one pipe lurking at the top and one sneaking at the bottom. It’s a work of art where you won’t find it anywhere else. Okay he did the pipes and then he thought that while waiting for the plaster or glue to dry he’ll kill time by chopping off a tree in-front of the house. During Raya there were a lot of people visited our house and at one time there were five cars in front of the house not including ours. Dad told me that he needs to chop off the tree and then two more cars can be parked at the vacant space. He told me then. I guess that fateful day he had decided to chop it off. Off with his head! That’s from Alice in wonderland. We do have some vulgar fairy tales. Hmm. Okay my sis said that as he was chopping the tree, the snake bit his hand and he screamed. And then I asked her what happened and she said mom grabbed some ointment and smoldered it on his arm. Then they called one of our neighbors to send him to the hospital. Mom, when faced by a crisis like this won’t be able to think let alone drive. Then I asked my sis what happened after that, she said that she is in the hospital and waiting for my dad. He was taken into the emergency room while mom and sis waited outside. Then I asked her again, how’s dad? That was when she started crying. She muttered “I don’t know”. Then I asked her to pass the phone to mom. Mom was also crying. Just imagine my feelings then. I asked mom and she said that the neighbor accompanied my dad in the emergency room. They asked mom and sis to wait outside. I asked mom why. Her exact words “ I guess maybe they think we’ll make a scene”. I wanted to smile but then at that time I had forgotten how. I told mom to calm down and let’s hope for the best. My sis said that she didn’t call anyone yet not even my brothers who is half an hour away. I hung up and called Haris and asked him to get himself there. I detected unesiness in his voice after I conveyed the message to him. He was worried. Back in our minds we were thinking of the accident that happened to dad a couple of years ago,I guess all of us are relieving the moments of the accident. Dad was involved in an accident about 3 years ago- exactly my tenure here. At that time Haris was the one who conveyed the message to me. It was worse then. He talked to me for a few seconds and then he broke down. He said it looked bad. There were blood everywhere even on Udin’s shirt. Udin was the one who accompanied my dad on the ambulance. Dad’s was lying on his lap while waiting for the ambulance. That was even more horrific. I cringed with fear whenever I recalled the accident and the first time I saw my dad. We couldn’t recognize him. We drove that night and reached Penang at 3am. At 7am we went to the hospital and found his bed empty and my mom wasn’t there. I didn’t panic. Seriously! Asked the nurse, she said they have taken him for x-ray. She showed us the room. H and I rushed in and H went straight to the back of the hall. I stopped at the door and scanned the room. I couldn’t see mom. My eyes rested on this old man on a wheel chair in the middle of the room. His eyes and face were swollen with bruises and blood. He had bandages on his arms and head plus a neck bracket. Even the bandages got blood on them. I asked myself – he doesn’t look like dad at all. But my legs were carrying me towards him and I kneeled down and look up at him and said “Ba”. He looked down at me and say “ You came back”. See ! What did I tell you about drama? That was then, this is now. So back to Haris. We knew and we were feeling the same kind of dejavu silently. Dad was in the emergency room for nearly one hour. I was keeping in contact with mom, sis and Haris for like every 10 minutes. Even H was worried. He and my dad had this special bond that it’s almost funny to see the two of them together. Mom and I called them the ‘odd couple’. They are so different but they are close. So unlike my dad to hug and show affection but H will demand it. He’ll hug dad and relay all his funny jokes to dad and treated dad like a normal human being. Hmm….that’s strange. All this while I didn’t view my dad as a normal guy. He’s a dad. He is my dad. Hmm. I talked to mom and mom said they injected some anti-toxin and some anti-venom and some other stuff. They managed to catch the snake and brought it for the doc to see. After this I’ll never look at Hospital Balik Pulau the same again. It’s kindda canggih. An anti-venom? After about an hour of numerous phone calls, dad called me. He said “You don’t’ worry, I am fine. My arm is a bit swollen but the doc said that I should be fine. Don’t have to come back. I am fine”. I was so relief. I passed the phone to Hannah and they had a granddaughter-grandpa talk. Then I talked to mom and my brothers had assured me that they’ll stay with mom, dad and sis till after dinner. The doc wanted him for the night for observation purpose. After the whole commotion of dad and the snake, we were preparing for Hannah’s concert and graduation. Yep. My baby is growing up so fast. We were in a hurry because we have to drop her off at 6pm. I sat at the back with her because I needed to do her make up. She’s so pretty even though the dress was a bit too striking for me. Thank God she’s fair and has Chinese features. If she has my features and skin color, they will say that she’s an Indian. The costume was in red and gold! H was telling me that both concerts are centered on Indian dancing. Last year was on a Tamil dance. This year was on a Hindi number. Anyway, we dropped her off and saw many parents were there already filling half of the auditorium already. H and I dropped Hannah to her teacher and we found our place in the middle of the hall. We waited for the first number. She was doing a pom-pom dance. She looked so different with the make up and a sparkly top but she looked happy. She did everything right. Towards the end she and another girl was suppose to carry the banner that says ‘welcome’ but somehow her side, the stick came out from the hem. She acted quickly, in a split second, she put the stick back in and she stood proudly holding the banner. I was so proud of her. I still am. The MC commented on how fast she reacted to the situation. Then she added a bit of promo- “in CEC we not only teach your children what’s written in books but also on how to solve problems and to be quick in thinking and coming up with solutions when the situation persists. The Indian dance was wonderful. She was enjoying herself and she danced well. I was beaming with pride and I succumbed to what all the other mothers were doing, waving at your children in the dark. I told myself it was silly because they couldn’t see you because the lights were on them and not on us. But I did it anyway, I waved and smiled. After the concert we went to buy her ‘ bread-fish-bread’ because she didn’t have her dinner yet. She was hungry. After that we headed home. It was drizzling and all of us were tired. When we reached home, I couldn’t find my keys. The keys were with me last. We searched in the car then I remembered the noise I heard when we were leaving for Hannah’s concert near the guard house. It sounded like something fell. I walked to the guard house and looking for the keys. I informed the guard. I walked back to the house and relayed the news to H. He wasn’t angry and he didn’t say anything hurtful but I can see that he wasn’t happy. He was coming down with the flu and he was tired. He asked me to get in the car and we’ll go back to the concert hall to check if I had dropped it in the hall. It was a good half and hour ride. He searched but to no avail. I called Alex and conveyed her the news. I asked if she has any locksmith’s number. She said she hasn’t but she said she’ll ask Snake(her hubby). H suggested that we bunk in at his sis’s place. The idea doesn’t sound good to me. I am in my jeans and t-shirt. I had to invigilate the next day. Alex offered her house. I would rather go to Alex’s. H didn’t want to because he said it’s out of the way. Alex even text H to ask him to go over. A good ten minutes later Alex call with a locksmith’s number. I called and the locksmith agreed to come. I told H we needed to stop by at an atm for cash. That was another wild goose chase. We went to nearly 10 atms and we couldn’t withdraw the cash. I finally encountered a guard infront of DEMC and he told me that after 12 midnight , you can’t withdraw money from most banks’ atm. That’s my silver lining- new information. I sat down in the car and I looked at H and we kept quiet for the longest second and then he reminded me that we have some cash in the house. Yes. We do. So we went home and I followed the locksmith up. I saw him did his thing. It reminded me of Italian Job-the movie. In the movie they were dealing with safes but that night I was looking at the man picking at my locks. It took him 15 minutes to get through the three locks. Then I am in. Took the money and paid him. Rushed downstairs, carried the sleeping Hannah up to her bed. Then only I started breathing well. H said goodnight and went to sleep. So that was my manic Sunday. It was a crisis of emotions and feelings. But surprisingly towards the end I was calm. I slept at 3am. After preparing H and Hannah’s stuff and reflecting on what had happened. I went to work in the morning looking bewildered and like a zombie. My attention and focus were off. But I laughed nevertheless, my way of releasing tension. My friends noticed that I wasn’t myself that day. Okay that’s the end of my manic Sunday. It was one hell of a day and I survived! Gotta go do some work. Hehe. Adios Amigos!