Digging for gold

You can get a lot of things done while driving on the roads in Malaysia. I think it is due to the fact that you spent a lot of time stuck on the road trying to get from one point to another point. And not only do you have to work 8 hours a day on a normal shift, but you also have to spend 3-4 hours on the road getting to work and going home from work.

Fortunately, I do not fall under that category. Staying just 5 minutes away from the office, I hardly had any problem getting there. However, I do get into the occasional crawl after work, when I'm heading to somewhere else instead, and also on weekends.

Of course, it can get very irritated and frustrating crawling at 10km/h on a long stretch of road. You know that without the traffic, you could get to your destination in less than 20 minutes. Instead, for that same period of time, the distance that you managed to cover is only 100m. And at the end of it, the reason for the long crawl was because an accident happened on the opposite lane. Yes, you heard me right. The accident happened on the other side of the road. But somehow, through some unexplained magical reasons, your lane was as slow as a tortoise taking an afternoon stroll.

Now, no reason to be angry, because you know it will not solve anything. You have just wasted 1 hours or so to cover 20 minutes of distance, and no amount of anger and swearing could return you the lost time.

That is why I am always prepared. Stuck in a jam? No worries, I have my green beans to munch on, the newspaper to read, and the music to keep me company. And if you've seen that car fragrance commercial on TV where the guy got stuck in traffic and he switched on his fragrance and suddenly he was in another place, well, that is all bullshit. No amount of fragrance, doesn't matter if it smells like the forest or strawberry delight can keep your mind away from a slow crawl.

So forget about Ambi-Purr or whatever the name is. Instead, read the newspaper, call your friends (make sure you're on hands-free), eat something, or better still, groom yourself. I once saw a young lady plucking the hair off her armpits during a long crawl. She would pluck one, sniff it and then blow it away. And so on until her armpit was hairless, I assume. The amazing part was she had to sniff every single hair. How weird was that? Well, at least it kept me occupied and entertained for a good 30 minutes.

My favourite thing to do has to be cleaning my nose. Stuck in a jam, ah, time to give the old nose a good poke and nibble. Maybe I'll find something big enough in it to turn into a nice small bouncy ball. Of course, I'm not the only one doing it. All I need to do is look around, and there is surely someone else doing it.

Suddenly I don't feel alone anymore.

So what do you do when you get stuck in a long crazy crawl?