Saturday, July 16, 2011

A tale of two unarmed robberies...

     How can I even begin to describe this week? If I can't do that, then last night certainly has no single word to describe it either. The closest thing I can think of is A-bomb of all cluster fucks and that's what? 5 words.

     As a warm up for the story to come, you should understand the week I've had. Consider it the opening act. My parents were in KL until Wednesday. I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked because of work, but they took my housemates out to banana leaf (I should so open up a shop back home...). Wow, that seems like forever ago...and it was Sunday. Monday we grabbed drinks at the hotel clubhouse, which had a killer view of KLCC. Unfortunately, I had to finish up work back at the hotel; and by finish I mean start. It was a late night.

     Tuesday I had the pleasure of being in the office from 9am until 7am the next day. I have never pulled an all-nighter for school, so pulling one for work seemed just as pointless. Many of you probably gasp at this, but I know when to stop for the night. Plus, it gets to a point where my brain tunes out and nothing that great gets accomplished anyway. Most of the ideas that come into your head at 3am are usually things you end up having to fix later (unless you're one of those people that prefers to work at night). Anyways, I digress, the only thing I really learned from that exercise was that I could take a day and a half leave.

    After falling asleep in the bathtub at the hotel, I said bye to the fams, checked out, and slept for a bit. Wednesday night I joined the regular CS crew for Indian food and free drinks (as it is ladies night). Thursday I went into work late, saw Harry Potter (it came out here before it did in the US, which I found  bit strange, maybe because of the date change? Basically what I'm getting at with all of this is that I don't sleep all that much. I've got a month left here, I don't see the need. It's a long plane ride home.

     Time passed at the office at an exceptionally slow rate yesterday. It rained when we (C and I usually head in together) and it poured when we left. Lunch was the worst meal I've had here by far (we chose a new place...tak best lah). At about 6 the entire office decided that watching the storm was more exciting than whatever else they were doing. It was the first storm here that was similar to the ones you get back in CO. I'm sure anyone back home knows what I'm talking about, as it has rained its heart out over there. It was the kind where it gets quiet before hand, the sky turns that awful color, and you aren't too sure if it's night or day.

     C and I were supposed to go to a pool party that night, so the outlook was not so good. A was supposed to pick us up and I was meeting H, N, and...ahh screw it let's just say the Alphabet and head to a party on my side of town. I live in a mostly Malay (usually implies Muslim) area so this is a rare event. The party needed music and obviously no one was really swimming so I headed to Changkat BB (where the bars are) with the Alphabet Gang. At this point, people were starting to party and things picked up a bit.

     C and I have this thing where we always seem to be the ones stirring the pot so-to-speak. Like most parties, BYOB is a courtesy thing, and C and I had bottle of vodka as our weapon of choice. We found it hilarious that when we were out on the town and took it out people in the group were surprised. Where I am from this is called smart, I suppose it's not as common here but I could be wrong. Everyone was having a blast and it was a great night of dancing, drinking, and being with a crowd of kick ass people.





     Unfortunately dancing with a purse filled with a large camera does not really work, so I put mine down. Huge mistake, obviously, as I am now without an iPhone as well as a local phone. Luckily I insured my iPhone before I left, so all I have to do is figure out what hoops I have to jump through in order to replace it (or if worst comes to worst I'll sell the iPad my mom left me). I obviously didn't see when it happened, but it was quick, I left my purse only for a few minutes until someone in the group moved it next to theirs. No, I don't need a lecture on how dumb it was for me to leave it there (it was stupid, people do stupid stuff, no one is perfect) and about the affects of alcohol. It's the first time I've had anything stolen from me while abroad, it was bound to happen someday. As they say, Karma's a bitch. What's done is done. No biggie.

     The person who stole it needs a lecture on what to steal. I had two cameras (one is a SLR), credit cards, and cash that were all left alone. Basically the person stole a shitty burn phone and an iPhone that's locked and requires passwords to do anything with it. He or she chose this over a $2,000 camera...I would put that under EPIC FAIL.

     However, I cannot say that C had the same luck. Just before I realized my phone had gone, she left to go back. To make a long story short, she fell victim to the classic motorbike thing they do here. Essentially they come from behind, slam you on the ground or drag you until your bag strap breaks and drive away. She lost everything except her phone and keys.

     I got home about 20 minutes after her to find her with dried blood all over her back. Of course, my immediate thought was someone had tried to rape her or something. She was too angry to even get words out at this point so I went to bed. She had gone to the cops by the time I woke up, but I didn't know it at the time so I had become pretty freaked out. I was also pissed at myself for losing my phones. MB always tells me that if he got a dollar for every time I asked where my phone was he'd be a millionaire. Well now the joke is on him...kinda.

     I headed over to the mall by my place to try to sort this phone thing out. They, of course, said they couldn't do anything and wrote down a place for me to go so I hopped in a cab. Get to the place, they say they need my passport (I don't carry it around here so - ironically enough - it doesn't get stollen) and there isn't anything they can do. At this point  I'm getting that OMG I don't want to deal with this country right now, WTF WTF WTF thing going on in my head that all expats experience at least once. This is time number three for me here, not bad. You just have to suck it up and move on.

     So in my frustrated and slightly hungover state I head home. C's back and I gave her a once over and she is pretty banged up. Got huge scrapes all over one side of her body. One of them looks pretty bad and wouldn't stop bleeding. So what do we do? Burst out laughing. I mean what else can you do? Yes, it probably doesn't sound funny, it's a huge pain in the ass to have to deal with but we are both ok and it could always be worse. For the time being, I'm C's sugar momma, but I ain't got much sugar. It's been a while since I've had a night that was as much fun as it was awful.

     Bad things always come in threes, so to top this one off our shower head broke off and our shower has become more like a fountain...



     Sometimes you come to a place and it looks lovely, acts pretty, and shows little sign of a dark under-belly. Other times, you get back handed in the face. The latter makes for a better story.

-M

No comments:

Post a Comment