The First Day

Listening to: ‘Til It Happens To You – Corrine Bailey Rae

It feels as though I have been awake since forever and maybe I have. It’s only 3.20pm Adelaide time right now but I have been awake since 4.30 a.m. because MAS believes that a Continental breakfast is best consumed during  the night flight at such an hour.

It was an uneventful flight – it started of with a crying baby which is the second most annoying to fly with but she/he (it?) stopped eventually. The woman in front of me decided that the best way to fly was with her seat pushed back so low that she was almost resting in my lap (most annoying thing to travel with). The movies weren’t too good as usual. The Marine (don’t ever watch it), Flushed Away and things like that. I watched Daredevil seeing as how I had never seen it and Malaysia had heroically banned it from theatres for being too violent (has anyone watched a Tamil film lately??).

Daredevil = engh. Enough said.

Dinner was pasta and fish. Well, it was dinner for the rest of the passengers anyway, I had never lost my apetite so quickly, ever. Maybe it was because I was feeling a teeny bit homesick; either that or the sight of that crumbed fish was more than I could handle at 11.30 p.m. (Yes, night flights have odd meal times).

The one thing I enoyed the most throughout that entire flight was the Mini Magnum they gave us for dessert.

Mini Magnum = Y.U.M.

I slept fitfully for the bext three or so hours and made it through customs alive. One of the things I dread most about airports is having to hoist my almost 30kg suitcase from the baggage carousel unto the trolley. Most days, I just fumble under its weight and it inevitably falls on someone’s foot. Today however, things were peachy. Thank God.

I cabbed it home with every intention of unpacking and maybe crying a little. When I saw the state of my room, all intentions of tears, even sniffles, disappeared. My landlord had converted my shared bathroom into an ensuite (so sweet!) and thus had moved some things around – everywhere (but arrrgh).

I have a love/hate relationship with my landpeople. They are so completely devoted and parental that it is easy to feel secure with that. On the other hand, it was stuff like this, that explains the other facet of my annoyance.

I was tired, hungry, bitchy, sleepy, sweaty and grumpy (did I name all seven dwarves there?) but I knew I would not get a wink of sleep until I had cleaned out my room. That is my OCD. And so, in sweltering 30 degree weather I vacuumed, dusted, arranged and rearranged.

Once that was done, I knew that my body odour would probably go against every law of nature unless I bathed it. And so I did.

Peeve #2: No shower screen was installed yet. Brilliant me, fails to notice this and bathes with my bathroom door open because if it’s too hot it tends to get stifling with my bathroom door closed.

No shower screen + spray jet of water = wet bedroom carpet floor.

Decided to ignore that, slopped a rug over it to soak up the water, towelled off and hurried off to Coles (equivalent to Gombak’s Wasbudi) to get food. Ended up accidentally leaving the most essential thing i.e. bread – in the  sanitary pad aisle when I knelt down to shove everything into my shopping bag and in my haste to leave my bread unkemeked, I literally just left it there. When I walked back again – because what is any sandwich without its bread? - I picked up another loaf and sureptitiously avoided looking at the prevous loaf left standing next to a packet of Whisper Wings.

Failure to find knife; ended up biting into raw tomato instead of previously intended dainty thin tomato slices.

At this point it was only 2 p.m. and it had felt like ages. My kind old landlord called and said he was going to come install the shower screen and he profusely apologised for everything which made me love them again. I was just being a grumpy cow after all; who wouldn’t prefer their own bathroom as opposed to a shared?

It was only when he came in did I realise I had left a pair of underwear hanging on the railing of my bathroom to dry. Can you say Black Granny Travelling Underwear? (you wanna be as comfortable as possible when you travel!)

He’s old, I reasoned, I’ll wait for him to look away and I’ll grab it. He comes in smiles and says, “meet the contractor”. And one burly man comes into the bathroom with his ruler, followed by another and he was followed by another again! Three burly male Australian contractors standing just metres away from my black underwear!!!

Oh, slay me now! They just went in, one by one. and stood around taking measurements and drawing layouts. I had only one choice. When they looked away, I walked in quick as flash, grabbed my shower cap and the underwear (together – you see the disguise?) and threw them carelessly into my laundry hamper. Of course, it would all have meant nothing if they had noticed my underwear in the first place. Like, why, would anyone WASH their shower cap? Sigh, but it was the only resort I had left. And I think if I had heard a chuckle I would have to be the first person in history to die of embarassment.

Which I didn’t.

My kind landlord apologised again, fixed my limping table (it was missing a bit of it’s fourth and second leg) and left with his Cohort of Burly Men. Which still leaves me tired, demotivated and still, unpacked. But my room is somewhat in it’s normal state and for that I am happy. I’ll go read awhile.

Still 4 p.m. huh? Lucky Malaysia – I can’t believe it’s only 1.30 at home.

Home = miss.

Thank God the hard part for this chapter is over. The ass busting is yet to come but when it does, you’ll be around. 

4.25 pm so badly wanna sleep but can’t. Damn jetlag.