The Unser,My Friend,is Blowing in the Wind




Please accept my apology for not updating sooner, although I have to say, this time, I have a very good excuse. Last week, our financial troubles finally caught up with us. We had, shall we say, a little visit from the repo man. Our beat-up car is now gone, taken away, confiscated, and now languishing in a warehouse somewhere in Kajang. Unfortunately, since they hotwired the vehicle without our knowledge, while it was parked at my husband's office, we were also unable to retrieve my gym bag, which was in the back seat. Ah well, can't go to gym then.

Being fat, of course is the least of my worries.

We sat ourselves down, and weighed our options. We have one month before Shylock, *cough*I mean, kindly financial institution, would auction off our car at G-Mart or the like. We could pay all outstanding monies to the bank, and get the car out, or we could sell the car before the deadline is up. Or we could ignore the whole thing, and kindly Shylock be damned , and allow our well-worn Unser be sold-off to the highest bidder. We have been advised to do the last, but it feels rather irresponsible. Of course, it's sanctimonious to pretend at being responsible -- if we were responsible we would have kept up our installments.

In the meantime, we have this problem of not being able to travel, save for taxis and trains. It's proof that being poor is more expensive. Thanks to the timely hike in the price of petrol, and the revised rates for taxicabs, Saiffuddin and I end up paying, like 20 bucks daily, just to get to work. So we decided, we should get a car, just for the time being, until things have settled down and I could take another loan.

We were not in the market for anything expensive, that was obvious. We trawled through the bargain sections in Motor Trader and AutoWorld, peeled our eyes for deals in The Star Classifieds. Nothing more than 5K. We braced ourselves to be seen in Honda Civics with flaking paint, and Toyota LE's that's had more than two owners. We could do this, we thought -- we've had old cars when we were students, and we certainly can do it again. Our benchmark was Mr Chong's car. Mr Chong, who lives next door, drives a rusty Datsun station wagon with doors that won't close properly. But then, Mr Chong is a socialist, so an oxidised Datsun is probably a badge of honour.

*Please note, Mr Chong is an intellectual who publishes brainy tomes on the current state of affairs in the country. He is a genuinely nice man. If you know Mr Chong, I beg you, don't tell him what I said about his car.

We went to check out a bone-shaker in Rawang, going for a song at 3 thousand ringgit. The car, unfortunately, wasn't humming. It wasn't totally bad, but still, we recoiled. We couldn't picture ourselves in a 3 thousand ringgit car. We shook the seller's hand, said thank you, and walked away. Years and years of living in middle class suburbia has made us soft, I'm ashamed to report.

So now we're looking for a car that we can keep, something the kids would like. My children miss the car the most, and would point out longingly to any Unser that we happen to pass by.

"Mummy", said my seven year old, Aiysha, " do you remember when we took all my teachers to the Yusuf Islam concert? They could all fit into the car, remember?"

It's a good thing Saiffuddin now has regular employment or else something like this wouldhave been devastating. Ah well, time to get a new car, do new things to remember.

Post Script : Despite having a letter from the bank to say we can recover our belongings, we couldn't do so until today, because the repo company was very, very unhelpful, just as we expected. After several days of going back and forth to Kajang, my husband finally got to the car, and guess what? My gym bag, along with my 350 ringgit Skechers, a huge bag of moisturizers and creams and shampoos that probably cost as much, plus headphones and other stuff, wasn't there. We're making a police report.

mokciknab muttered at 3:48 pm ~ ~