What Baby Stroller Etiquette?

For the second time that day he smiled at me. That awfully cute smile that had successfully sent me straight to my own version of the seventh heaven. Yet being the scaredy cat that I am, I was only able to reply with a slight grin on my face as I passed him in the direction of my own locker at the gym. I then gave a sigh. A mixture of relief and excitement. What shall I do now, dear God what shall I do?

And suddenly I heard a woman’s voice walking towards my direction. Somebody was talking on the phone and the voice grew louder. Wait. This is a men’s locker room. Why did they let this woman in? Then before long, appeared this wiry man, busy carrying what appeared to be an oversized gym bag with a mobile phone attached to his right ear.

“You know they should learn the etiquette of using a baby stroller in an elevator!” he screamed to his phone.

This happened to be the same man with the raspy nagging woman’s voice I’ve just heard earlier. His hair was permed in the highlights of dark copper golden blonde, dark ash blonde and a tinge of light auburn shades. (Don’t ask me how I remember these things!)

“Overseas they would carry the baby in one hand and fold the stroller so they’d be able to put more people in the elevator!” s/he continued.

Oh no. Logically, that would be essentially against the purpose of creating any baby stroller. They should liberate you. Not the other way around. Later on I promised meself to google this “etiquette” that he was explaining to the sorry respondent of his phone call.

“So this lady… She just shoved it right in and hit my ankle so hard I would yelp by the wheels. I was just having the most agreeable coffee downstairs at Starbucks. And this bitch, she didn’t even say sorry or what so eva! And you know that I wasn’t wearing anything but this little thong number from Tod’s” s/he bragged.

Then I saw the problem: His/ her little princess ankle got hit by the seemingly hardcore-all season’s-terrain-rubber-wheel of a baby stroller. I would be irritated if somebody hit my ankle with the supermarket cart or the metallic protruding footrest of a wheelchair. And alas, the before mentioned lady didn’t say sorry.

“I will tell the mall to forbid people using any baby stroller in the elevators ever again!” s/he said steamingly.

And what? Make them use the stairs or the escalators? Risking the precious life of the child cradling in the contraption? Why can’t people be reasonable? Shit happens everyday. The highlighted princess shall say something to the shoving lady if s/he was so mad.

“So when I left, I gave her the nastiest look she’ll have to remember forever!” s/he concluded.

By that time I was done finishing my self in the gym’s locker to get back to the office. Ms. Complaints there hadn’t yet brought any end to his/her ventilating to the other side of the phone.

Walking out on the corridor I saw Smile was still sipping his coffee at the lounge area.

“How was your baby stroller?” I grinned at him with joy.

“Aha! You heard that too?” he said.

The baby stroller pick-up line did give me a chance to get to know Smile better.

“Oh here she comes…” Smile said warning me of an impending Queen’s wrath.

“I am even gonna sue them and make them pay for what she did to me earlier!!” s/he demanded.

Swiftly I then rotated my gaze to her/him, which startled the little monster.

Excuse me:

1. The public shall prioritize people on wheelchairs or having baby strollers in the “public” elevators.

2. Use the stairs if you just need to head one flight up or down

3. Give room for the disables too. Oh wait, you are one of them: People get hurt everyday in one degree or another. But you! You are disabling your heart to give such a trivial matter to a rest!

So when I left, I gave her/him the nastiest look that s/he will never forget.

Eat my dust! (Oh, not you Smile darling…)

Prof. Utonium

Copyright: Opening Image. Corbis © 2010

The Commoners

There is actually nothing wrong with being a commoner. We wake up at certain hours of the morning, then we go to our usual workplaces, get stuck in the same traffic, we go home, do our errands and chores, cook or get dinner, and at a certain hour we will fall asleep, recharging our cells for the next day to fuel our activities. For most of us this is what we call living or even in some extreme case, surviving. But then again there are some species, with exactly similar features who would not accept the fact that they too are just commoners just like the rest of us.

Then the problems arise. Call it self-respect or even arrogance, members of this species felt like they are actually special enough to be handled with respect and dignity. They felt the need to stand out from the bunch. But then again maybe this is not the perfect time yet for them to enter the upper strata. They do not have enough of the key x-factors, mainly in the form of assets, power, lineage, or luck, to punch a notch above the average. Therefore this group would feel frustrated, helpless, and tired of being pushed around like the rest of us, the commoners.

It was like as if they were so close to the comfort zone that they were looking for, but haven’t yet reached the garden behind the gate. They may mingle with the upper crowds, shop in the same luxury boutiques, even hangout in the same uber-chic watering holes. But to survive, they need to be extra careful on when to hold and release their resources. Unlike the group of people above them, who do not seemed to be too bothered about this.

These “special” commoners may drive cars, but they cannot afford a chauffeur or an assigned parking spot. They may rent a reasonable living space, but not yet able to own one. Or even if they have an abode, it might not be the address that they felt they should reside at. They may be able to travel abroad, but budget hotels and airlines are still their common vehicle.

They would probably snigger at the commoners as if we were lacking of something special to become one of them. They always look up to the skies while forgetting to be grateful that they are already somewhere reasonably saver. An area where they don’t have to line up for poor people’s rice, drinking water, cooking oil or commodity gas.

And the thing that would hit them the most is the simple fact that they still have to queue the long lines of the banks. This group hates waiting. They wanted to be treated as royalties, but they do not have what it takes to be considered one. They would hate how the priority customers would cut their lines without even asking for permissions. They would envy the special deluxe rooms that would accommodate those big rollers. And they would promise themselves, that one day they too would have enough business for the banks or other merchants to take them seriously.

Go ahead. Plan, do, and get them.

Meanwhile the rest of us commoners have an easier way to avoid getting cut off of our lines: Bribe the tellers with cakes and cookies, find an obscure branch or simply be there early.




Concerned commoner,





Prof. Utonium

Copyright: Opening Image. Corbis © 2008

Black Monday

“Seacrest. Out” I said while leaving my office one mid afternoon. “But you are NOT presenting Cimahi Idol!” yelled one of my Sundanese colleagues. “Dun care darl! I am just fed up with everything today, I need my personal moment”. “So where are you going?” she asked. “Personal moments became that way because they are personal thus none of your business” I snapped. The air was thick, choking, annoying, and not enjoyable at most. I called that specific day my Black Monday.

Maybe it was PMS, maybe then it was the overextended gout attack, but for sure nothing would satisfy me that day. Everything just seemed to be wrong. From the banks’ long queuing lines, the traffic jam, the stupid questions people called me to answer. It was just a totally wrong day.

I didn’t remember how many people had I snapped at that day. It was just simply no more Mr. Nice Guy from this side of the globe. I felt like the sweet and polite guy I was known as, had left the building along with Elvis. If someone would start a bad mouthing, I would retort in an equally bad and long angry monolog. In short: Don’t even light any match, because the fuse were drenched in gasoline already.

Short Note: And the funny thing was, I just realized that when I was really really angry, I specifically only burst-out in English, forgetting any other common tongues. Maybe I watched too much bitching in Melrose Place and General Hospital in my youth.

Some of my victims were over pushing telemarketers, my merchant relations officer, and a few friends who seemingly displayed an open fire strategy as their greeting method of the day.

During the previous weekend, all I needed to calm my soul was a heartfelt karaoke session with my friends. Some of them did come to an undisclosed Satay meeting place. But none of them wanted to have a karaoke nite. I started to get mad that weekend. Damn, why is it so hard to understand that when a girl needs to sing, she NEEDS to SING.

Grumpy old bastard then I became through Sunday and explosive Mama I then was by Monday.

Monday night I came home totally exhausted for feeling mad for no apparent reason. The only consolation was the chuckling I had when Mr. Boyfriend called in. He told me to be patient, to meditate and to pray at the end of that ugly Monday.

I did.

Tuesday didn’t seem to be any different.

I was still busy snapping at people who’d done some wrong timing with me. Then it came to me that I needed my personal moment. I needed to go somewhere secluded, tranquil with a pint of meditative quality.

So then I went to Pacific Place in the middle of the CBD. Not exactly meditative. But it was close by. It was empty. It was enough to sooth my burning mind. Then yet again, I was about to get mad again when I realized that I didn’t even bring my notebook from the office. What if in case I would need to perform some karmic surfing on the net?

Then I pulled out my little phone. Turned on the bandwidth, ordered some heavenly chocolate cake at Segafredo and just stared on the screen of my phone. Sipping through my second glass of iced macha, I was already smiling, laughing, and even kicking my feet, as I laughed so hard, my stomach would hurt.

So what was my savior of the day?

It was Jon’s blog. I am sure you’ve read his writings as he was featured in Fridae a while back. God, let me thank you for creating Jon. He really saved the day. I am really thankful that he still writes in his own funny way. It was sincere yet it was too honest at times.

Who needed to know how a Thai elephant would blast a heavy load of shit during a very hot and humid day trip? Who needed to know why his mother was afraid that he would get kidnapped by the insurgence at the southern border? Who needed to know why his father would seem so kind and yet thrifty at the same time? Who needed to know how a patient’s vomit would have a certain texture and fragrance that one specific male nurse would be able to distinguish?

I did.

And I laughed. And I laughed.

By 6 pm that evening, I was back in my old shoes. The sweet nature and caring guy who rarely gets angry and who has an abundance of patience (well at least I may act like I have one) in dealing with problems.

It was almost two weeks ago.
And I am still in a jolly good mood.

Thank you Jon for saving my week.


Forever indebted,






Prof. Utonium

Copyright: Opening Image. Corbis © 2008

Homogenic Independence Day

The sky was unwelcomingly cloudy. I felt such an immense desire just to be idle and simply do nothing that morning. And as if the dark clouds had moved into my bedroom, suddenly my phone rang. It was from Tornado, a colleague of mine. Drowned in his own panic attack, he blurted: “Dude, from now on you better take care of your movements. They’re now getting suspicious about your homosexuality!” With that news the lightning struck clamoring any loose objects and my windowpanes. The rain then poured harder and all we could do were just to sit tight and welcome the torrential storm on that unglamorous Tuesday.

Genesis
The story began on that fateful Friday, our independence-day holiday. I was about to meet a friend who would introduce me to an artist for an exhibition in our premises. Blah (my friend) came with Sashimi, a female friend of ours, along with Imogen and her husband Peso.

Apparently as the painter couldn’t come with them, Imogen, the painter’s cousin showed me a catalog of the paintings. The colors were intense -if not rather angry- in their moods. The intensities were amazingly brilliant, I really wanted the public to grab these astonishing feelings as well as I did. Therefore, it was decided that it was okay for us to have his solo-show there.

Not too long after that, blame my over-friendly state of being, I got to know the fact -in a small world that we are living in- that this Imogen person actually are somewhat related to Hibiscus, the girlfriend of my abovementioned colleague, Tornado.

So, just wait. You knew it was coming didn’t you? The storm was definitely brewing straight to my direction.

Out of the Blue
Came Monday, it was rather sweet and the sun was shining nicely, if not a bit scorching for a 10 AM. I guessed not long after that, Imogen called Hibiscus on the phone and imperturbably mentioned something in the line of: “Hey I didn’t know that you are a friend of Prof. Utonium (-me, the writer-)? I got to meet him on Friday, and he was with a friend of mine whom I know so well. And guess what? He is gay!! So so… (in gossip-mode: ON) do you think… err… the Professor could also be… gay?”

So as any regular muggleborn would, the news shocked Hibiscus to the core. She then relayed the news to her boyfriend, Tornado.

Hence the frantic call on the next thunder-pounding morning.

Curiosity Kills the Cat
Why was this news became a great shock to them? For Hibiscus and her entire family. I was actually cool about it. The only regret was just, that I was infinitely annoyed that Imogen had against my will sent my panicky colleague, Tornado to even a higher level of terrifying delirium.

My family, close friends, and close-related colleagues at work already understood about my so-called little “secret”. So what was this chaotic insanity all about then? I was so demure about it until later in the evening, when someone else actually gave me a harassing call: “So, ehm Professor, who then was with you when you met Imogen last Friday, I wonder?” (Lavishly spoken along the style that I could reply with– “I don’t like your tone there Missy!!”)

My reply was court and simple,
“Oh I asked Blah, a good friend of mine to arrange a meeting at my place so we could exhibit the paintings of Imogen’s cousin. Why?”

She didn’t reply much.

Agitated
Annoyed to the hilt, sms-ed Hibiscus then I did:
“Darling how are you? Wheww the gossip on me today was insane no? Oh wow, so I guess you guys had never met or known any gay/ lesbian person personally no? Well, maybe you guys should go out more and know more people out there hehe… Let me kill Imogen for you for spreading ill-news without the consent of the owner, hehe…”

And to make it worse, in the same evening, Tornado seemed to be stricken by an intense migraine (presumably because of this?). I sent him home early.

For a while, Hibiscus seemed to fail in replying the message. The only thing I did was just to calm my nerves and pray (ever-so-again) to God: “Dear Lord, I have no idea how the simple meeting would turn into this ugly mess. I have no idea what tomorrow will look like as the outcome. I have faith in You and I know that You know what’s best for me lah… I thank You again for always being there for me. Amen.”

And three hours later an sms reply came from Hibiscus:

“Oh so sorry Kuya… I didn’t mean to spread rumors or to hurt you in anyway (in which were done already, btw)… Please don’t think about it (you think?) and please do not tell this to anyone, cuz I felt bad already, and I don’t want Imogen to know about this. Sorry again and thank you for understanding”

I replied:
“It’s ok lah, but I just chopped Imogen with the infamous red-axe into seven meaty pieces ready to be boiled in a gravy of chicken broth. Haha…”

Ignoramus
Deliberately I wouldn’t contact Imogen, I didn’t feel the urge to further defend myself against her peculiar inquiry. But however, a question still lingered in my mind: Imogen, how could you be so unaware of things?

You might have lived in Utopia-land for so long, you might have been the lead-vocal of an underground goth-band, you might even be open-minded about things, but there was one thing that you forgot to calculate: The reaction of simple muggleborns like Hibiscus alike.

Next time, thinketh lah, before ye speaketh ya?

There’s nothing to forgive even if I wanted to. You didn’t do anything wrong Imogen, you just slipped and did not realize that you were just being simply-ignorant on an extremely delicate issue that mattered to some people.

Jangan Ganggu Bencong
Somehow I just knew that good things are the only things that the next dawn is bringing. I don’t wanna think about it too much. I got work to do and many many chores to perform. And most of all, right here, right now, I am missing mi Don Guapo so much.

Mahal, dimana kamu?

Got Nailed

I didn’t catch the warnings it was showing me within the last couple of weeks: The heavy drag, the suspiciously higher gas consumptions, and the less than standard agility in which this hatchback shouldn’t have performed. On the surface it seemed to be all nice and dandy. Even flooring the pedal in the Kebun Jeruk – Karawaci tol strip, in which I have to patronize more than I wished for- Captain Righteous (my car) however, was still stable in every way. The grip was doing fine, even slicing through puddles of water were done at ease with no hazardous slip. But reaching 0-100 kmph was extremely slow compared to what Captain Righteous and I had achieved in the past.

So there I was feeling a little queasy after the long haul from Pondok Indah, I decided to make a left turn at an available Shell gas station. It shocked me to find out that the air-pressure in the back-right tire was only 18 psi. Sumthin’ was wrong. But I didn’t know how definitely scary circumstances were.

The next day, before going to work I managed to fit Captain Righteous in a tire workshop to see if anything had gone awry. Apparently, the mechanic said, the maker of the car had put some very nice brand of rubber as Captain Righteous’ footings. “It should’ve been flat like my worn out sneakers seeing what happened here!”

He extracted 6 (yes, six) nails from one tire alone!! The others were ostensibly fine.

Now I remembered.

The Permata Hijau overpass going to Pondok Indah are frequently hit by coward cons posing as nail-spreaders to milk extra cash from unwilling clients for patching their tires- when the going gets though. And this was the exact overpass that I had to go through every single day from home to work.

My stomach churned. I wanted to take my wand out and simply perform an ill-fating excruciation curse to whoeva did spread those rusty nails on public roads for their own gains.

But since I was tortured and forced to read a book by the name of Secrets (by Rhonda Byrne), I now need to have a positive outlook: I pray that these people (can I say dimwit here?), would soon realize that only bad things will come along by harming others. Ouch, for fuck sake, can I just do a stampede charm on them instead?

Back to the workshop then. He asked me whether or not I wanted a new tire replacement. I was like, “Can you just simply fix them instead with some chemical rubber hole-filler and hardener?”

Shall I worry? I mean, with the newly found six tears in the tire, it meant that the same tire had suffered 9 strokes in total (for it had 3 nail attacks prior to this).

Of course, according to the workshop mechanic, everything will be just fine.

Another one of those “This is so Indonesia!” moments.

Hidup tukang tambal ban!
Long live ye rubber patcher!

To the left... To the left...

Like a midnite attack, slowly yet calculated, they managed to suck you into their vortexes. When you are snuggling comfortably in their traps, they will then inform you subtly, “Actually, do you mind if I am still in a relationship with another person?” And before you could utter a single word, they would continue, “Oh it’s a rocky one, I’ve had it with him since forever and I think I am going to drop him very soon.” Alas, these types. With questionable motives, they want you around. And the ultimate draw was the fact that they never leave the other person. Ever.

I've never planned to be a home wrecker in my life. Until I was faced with limited options in encountering such behaviors: Shall I let him go (in which he was already dear to my heart) or shall I pretend that I am okay with all of these (in which I am so not ok of course)? Once I made that choice nearing the end of last year, I asked him to leave the other person and submitted to my request he did. The relationship didn’t go very well, because I knew from the beginning: The wants factors had won over the needs of my fragile heart and mind.

Another encounter of the same types not too long ago, but at least this person just wanted to have sex without wining and dining me. Of course he had to leave me with the phrase, “Look I am not promising anything, I am still in a relationship” Like, duh, why didn’t you tell me this previously and as iffff, whoeva was hoping for anything anyway! Well, maybe my face gave it out. I might act like I just need him for the (great) sex. But my face, he might’ve seen the longings that I had for him. To be closer to him.

Darn, I am such a sucker for romance.

And now this. Mojo Jojo, how dare you tell me right upfront that you are still wondering about the sexuality your newfound –cute- friend? All that when you are still unclear of what do you want to do with your current –rocky- one? With how many person(s) do I have to compete to win your heart siy? Very bad, bad, monkey. Suddenly it hit me. Oh yes, you are a catch and I think you know it well. But are you still worthy of catching my time, my attention and my affection?

Oh God, what have I done in the past to deserve all these bastards? They came in various shapes and sizes, usually in some very nice packaging. So, are you my dear, another bastard?

To the left
To the left…