You know...

That your spouse will miss your nagging...
...when you want to travel overseas and he asks for a job brief for daily chores...

It’s time to leave your friends’ or relatives’ place...
...when they switch off the light..., after they have been yawning and you are still there (a relative did that...she'd pretend to accidentally switch off the light, pause & switch it back on...hahahaha)

It’s time to upgrade..., when you try to ‘teach old dog new tricks’, and it crashed... i mean, the computer.

It’s time to go to the gym, watch what you stuff into your mouth...
...when you think you can dance and when the music stops, not everything stops...

The Taxis’ True Tales

Illustration by a 7 year old who can’t wait to grow up...

You have to be mentally strong to ride in a cab here in Dubai or other emirates in UAE.

These are extracts of comments made by some taxi passengers recently:

“...I almost died of the smell really bad! it's like dead rats...”
“...2 year old son bitten by bugs in the taxi....”
“...I actually have a fear of getting in a taxi in Dubai. I have had to stop the taxi on numerous occasions to vomit by the roadside from the stench of the drivers...”

I experienced many similar smelly situation before. Once, I asked a taxi driver to stop & let me off 0.5km before my apartment, I would rather walk... I had stopped breathing for up to 40 seconds a few times during the ride...and finally I could no longer bear the stench & almost vomited. The seat was wet, the smell was like 1 thousand years old rotten eggs mixed with 1 thousand days old unwashed socks...ok, I exaggerated...maybe 100 years old. The poor driver probably did not realise & was immune to the smell, like a person who has BBO but does not know unless someone else tell him/her. That reminded me of the day my 7 year old child returning from school & said, “ Mommy, I don’t want to go to music class anymore as the teacher smell really bad...can you buy a perfume for her?”

That was only about the 5th sense, the smell. The ride itself sometimes felt like ‘Nightmare On The Elm Street’, as some drivers will speed and accelerate even more after being told not to... that’s another scary story.

Many moons ago, there were many stories or complaints from frustrated passengers on the difficulty of getting taxis here in Dubai.

Who will get a cab? From a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being ‘I do not need a cab, the cab will horn & stop for me when I am standing outside a building or by the roadside.’ And 10 being ‘I waited for many hours no cabs will stop for me, until I fainted in the heat and the ambulance took me to the hospital.’ The number 5 will be, ‘sometimes I am lucky, sometimes I am not.’ And wait a minute...there is another score, No.11, being ‘I have a better chance of being picked up by UFO.”

And on the passengers’ podium there are 3 medals, gold, silver and bronze. If the colour of the hair and skin of passenger is towards the first medal, then this passenger will score 1 on the scale.

This is the fact of life, whether it make sense or not. Most of us live on with that. No big deal.

Or perhaps it makes economic sense for the taxi drivers, as not all customers are created equal, some customers give generous tips.

Nowadays, many people have left against their will. There are less potential customers for taxis. So, regardless of podium finishes, most people happily score 1.

Recently, authorities have told taxi drivers to improve their personal hygiene. "Taxi drivers have been told to wear deodorant, not to eat with the windows closed, and to open their windows after passengers leave so that fresh air can circulate."

A passenger remarked, “...make sure the taxi drivers carry their own deodorant... once a taxi driver asked me if I have any perfume in hand...”

Usually in motorsports championship, the top 3 winners will spray Champagne from the podium, now we can all spray perfume, cologne or deodorant.

And, if you have any perfume, cologne, deodorant to spare, perhaps you can donate to the taxi drivers... sometimes, some people cannot afford to smell nice.

We are all alike

School project – making Chinese Hat, the children (includes European, British, Iranian, South African, Indian, Algerian, Pakistani, Russian, etc) tried their hands in writing Chinese words. In the end, the characters looked more like profane / censored words.

Although we are all alike, as human living on the only planet livable now that we called Earth...there are so many languages, so many nationalities, so many beliefs, etc, it’s indeed tough to understand or tolerate each other.

One day, my 6 yr old returned home from school complaining, “Mommy, my classmates asked why are my eyes so small. I opened my eyes bigger but it’s not working, they said my eyes still look small.”

So, I told her to say this if her classmates ever ask her the same again, “I have eyes, it doesn’t matter whether they are big or small, I can see. Imagine those poor blind people, they cannot see. We are so lucky.”

If we complain about having no nice shoes to wear, think about those people without legs.

Tenant versus Landlord (Part 2)

Recent advertisements:

“I am looking for 1 badroom apartment to rent....” – poor fella, he must have been an abused tenant in the past, having bad quality accommodation. He should realise that it is tenant’s market now.

“I am looking for an apartment to rent, 3 bedrooms, at AED1 per year...” – this fella is not serious. he’s having fun placing dummy ads to get back at landlords who used to be unrealistic & unreasonable just last year, asking for AED220,000 per year for 3 bedrooms apartment. AED220K can buy a nice double-storey house (a.k.a villa here in Dubai) in Msia.

Another one from agent on behalf of landlord:
“The large balcony of this beautifully upgraded 3-bedroom apartment overlooks the community pool and park area! And when you move into this property, you can not only look at, but you can also use all of the community facilities, including a family BBQ area, large and small pools, gym, play area, basketball half-court and a community room. “

Goodness me...had the previous tenant been denied use of all the facilities?

Can't Wait

Children say silly but funny things, strange but nice things.

The other day my 6 yr old said:“I can’t wait to grow up!”.
Oh man... we adult are trying to slow down aging.
I said “Why do you want to grow up so fast, mommy does not want to grow old fast!”
She said: “I can’t wait to see how I will look like when I grow up.”
Well...I can wait as I certainly do not want to know how I will look like when I grow old...

It is exam time in May. School is having assessment for one week.
At home, after first day of assessment, she looked very happy before bedtime & said: “I am so excited! I can’t wait to go to school tomorrow to do assessment.”

Okay...that’s very strange, I recalled I was nowhere near that kind of feeling when I was having exam ages ago...

I asked:“Why are you so excited?” She said: “I can’t wait to see whether I will get ‘A’.”

So many more years of exam ahead, there is also B, C, D, E or even F. In order not to redefine or change her positive attitude towards exam, I say no more.

Is the IT guy on your buddy list?

People who still get to go to work a.k.a. employed, have no problem getting their PC up & running again sooner, all they have to do is call the IT guy when the PC is down.

Once unemployed, it will be FOY and DIY – find out yourself and do it yourself.

77 full moons ago, I quit my job. It was also the days of awakening. I learned that the hardware hardly talk to the software. And it was a disadvantage being a female as nobody would seriously have a conversation with me when I walked into a computer shop/service centre, etc. They thought only male uses computer and female uses computer as a typewriter.

One day my notebook (on the not-so-respected Vista) decided to pop me an error message that sounded like this: “I don’t like you. And you don’t have a choice. I am going to go into coma soon.” The hard disk was on the verge of failure.

Everything seemed to come to a standstill for many days which felt like years. Picking up the phone for support rarely helped, as you can’t make out what the other person was talking about, with their heavy slang as most such call centre is located somewhere else out there. It’s good to have international warranty, but the ‘special’ localised centre will only provide technical support to locally purchased notebook, you are kicked around and ended up talking to someone who is located somewhere out there.

Then, I recalled news of the infamous HK movie star who sent his pc for repair and soon found his private files being uploaded onto the net. Well, I assured myself, I am not a movie star, and I don’t have any birth suit pictures on my hard disk. Ok, but I still have to get files out & deleted from the hard disk before sending in to the centre, in case somebody decided to steal my pictures and superimpose my head onto an elephant.

So, I had to transfer everything out to a portable external hard disk of 320GB, which I reckon will not be enough in future... I wonder who on earth is still using the yesteryears of 1MB floppy disk.

The only consolation was that my notebook is still under warranty. HP replaced a new hard disk but it was empty, I had to reinstall everything myself, which reinforce the importance of making recovery disks on the very first day.

It was a new experience as an end user, standing on the outside of the building a.k.a. not employed. You are lucky if you have a ‘Buddy Circle’, a circle of either family members or relatives or friends which ideally should include a lawyer, a doctor, and an IT guy, who usually is an unappreciated-abused employee of a company, everybody call this guy when their PCs are down, but some don’t even know his/her last name or worst the first name.

Nowadays, you can’t live without a computer and the net, employed or unemployed.

You should buy your IT guy a cuppa and some nyonya kuih, while still employed.

Tenants versus Landlords

Many moons ago, this was common conversation when a potential tenant was viewing an apartment:
Agent (on behalf of landlord) : “If you do not take up this apartment by today, the rental will increase by 5% tomorrow.” 1 day later, when tenant called agent, apartment viewed the day before was no longer available. You were considered lucky if you had the opportunity to even view one.

A neighbour from Hong Kong who moved into her apartment last year, had to replace the water heater (which is as big as NGV tank) when the owner refused to replace it! Too bad she didn’t think about keeping the old heater. I would be ‘wicked’ enough to reinstall the old heater when it is time to move out! A Japanese neighbour was seen rushing out from his apartment one morning, and demanded the management building to send a maintenance guy immediately, as water was leaking and pouring down from his ceiling, but the maintenance people said he must bear the initial cost of AED200 per 1 hour visit! All these are some of the ridiculous stories many of us had heard over the past many months.

The Shift of Power has already begun, perhaps since January 2009.

Todate, the rent has fallen, ranging between 20-50% or even more, depending on the area.

Today, even the birds are happier, I can actually hear the birds chirping very loudly in the morning, Happy tenants, new arrivals or those who are still able to keep their jobs are seen carrying long check lists when viewing new places to stay.

There are still some arrogant and stubborn landlords though, just ignore them. They are still in denial mode.