My 1st call to the police

Last Sunday night, when I was opening the door to my house, I heard Addielle’s voice from inside, “Jez, is that you?”

“ya?”

She quickly opened the door, frantically motioned for me to enter quickly, and Jade was standing next to her with an unusually pale face.

She then shut the door behind me, and asked “Are you alone?”

“No, Tim is outside. He went to check why the back door is opened.”

She opened the door, “eh Tim! Faster come in! faster!”

With her shivering voice, Jade explained that while she was in her room skyping, she heard a knock on her window. A black guy was standing outside motioning for her to open the door. She thought he was Addielle or my friend, so she continued to make hand signals to ask what he wants. They exchanged a little more hand signals, but she only could understand the “open the door for me” message. So Jade went over to Addielle’s room to ask if she’s expecting anyone.

Once Addielle said no, Jade’s knees went weak and she started to panic. Addielle went over to her room, saw no one was at the window, closed it, and went straight to the front door. That was when they heard someone entering and was relieved to see me instead of the black guy.

Now why would anyone walk into our backyard to tap on her window?! Why would he want her to open the front door?! How did he leave so fast considering Tim went to check once we arrived home?! What’s he trying to do at our backyard at that hour?!

I recalled hearing footsteps outside my window two nights ago at 1.30am, and when Tim went out to check (with my smallest pot in one hand), no one was there. That was an added fear for us girls.

After concluding that it might have been an attempted break in, all 4 of us took out our phones and started calling all the guys we know who lived nearby. In less than 10mins, 5 guys appeared at my place. William from Botswana (holding a rolling pin), and Offered from Zimbabwe macho-ly checked the backyard if the guy was still there or not. But it was just darkness with a bit of moonlight (and our laundry) filling the backyard.

Genesis said we should call the cops immediately. Well, I did. Only 20mins after the incident. I had to do the talking cuz Jade was still shivering. The police woman said there’s nothing she can do now but to get some cops to patrol the area in the coming nights. And I should make a report at a police station the next day, too.

So that night after Francis and Jon played with Jade’s BB gun, we 3 girls had minimal sleep, and the following day of ultimate paranoia.

Just as Jade and I were to leave the house to make the police report the next day (around 4pm), I saw a black hand knocking on the grill just when I opened my front door. I jumped back a little and all the defensive moves went flashing through my head. “aim and kick at balls, pinch armpits, poke eyes, jab adam’s apple…”

The black skinned guy stood in front of me smiling. All we had between us was the grill netting and my fear. “Hi, I came to apologise for what I did last night” I must say… his British accent was rather charming.

“I’m your neighbor from Unit 2. I forgot to bring my keys out last night and I thought I’d get my housemate to open the door for me. But I didn’t realize I was at the wrong house until I saw your (Jade’s) face. That’s why I ran off quickly. I’m so sorry… I had a bit too much to drink last night. I'm terribly sorry about that. I hope I didn’t cause much trouble”

Jade and I was speechless at first, then I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Did you know we actually had a hand signal conversation going on?” said Jade, who I think was a little mad but relieved to know we’re not victims of robbery or assault.

He shook his head, buried his face in his hands, crouched down near our front garden patch, and moaned about how embarrassed he was.

We didn’t make the police report, but we got an alarm system for our house just so we can now sleep in peace.

At least now we’ve got to know our unit 2 neighbour is from the UK (and kinda make friends with them), our house is armed, and we know which macho boys to call whenever we're in trouble.

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A series of unfortunate bus events

Well… it was actually just one unfortunate event which caused a whole lot of other disastrous events to happen. I left my house at 9am to catch the 9.06am bus to work which starts at 10am (yes it takes me that long to get there). Knowing that it’ll be an hour, I started my usual routine of reading a few chapters of my book (I’m surprised this is my 4^th book since mid feb!). Since the rain this morning, the traffic was quite heavy so I know it’ll take longer than usual. Once a while I’d scan the bus and look outside to rest my eyes from the pages. The air was rather crisp and clear. Somehow it flooded the inside of the bus with this awkward hum. Like everyone’s thoughts were louder than usual.

After one too many chapters, I took another eye rest, when I realized that I was not on the bus route. I was on another freeway, which has no bus lanes or stops. Realization number two—I was the only passenger on the bus. I kept my book and walked to the front to check if there was a bus driver on this speeding bus.

Bus driver: oh! I thought there weren’t any passengers on my bus anymore. I’m off my duty already.

My thoughts: You’ve gotta be kidding me =.=”

Bus driver: where are you headed to?

I explained the exact stop and mentioned I’m not familiar with the routes cuz I’m still new to Perth (I still use that excuse when I get lost =p). then both of us just looked at the only possible turning to the left that’ll take me to work, as the bus sped off on the right lane of the freeway.

Bus driver: it’s not my fault. I’ve signed off from my shift and I’m late for my dental appointment at ten.

Me: bbb…but…but… you could have checked properly before concluding that you can go get your teeth fixed! (ok I didn’t say that out loud, but I think he should have known better).

Bus driver: I think you should call work to let them know you’ll be late.

My thoughts: you reckon?!?!?!?

Soon he dropped me off at a major junction, somewhere between ‘I don’t know where’ road and ‘move aside or you’ll be run over by heavy vehicles’ street. I walked for about 200m to a bus stop and called Tim at work to shout mayday. Though he was tempted to just come and save me, I decided to brave it up and find my way to work, alive (it was already 9.50am).

After 15mins of freezing cold wait, a bus came and took me to Wellington Bus Station in the city. I ran to the info centre and explained my story to this attendant named Kit. He’s really professional and gave me all possible routes to get to work and said TransPerth overcharged me 54cents because I failed to tag off at the bus that was supposed to take me to work. Apparently I can call them to claim that back. (my call would cost 30cents so I think it’s ok to donate half a dollar to the public transport than to get back 24cents for my dignity).

I had to take 4 buses, transfer buses at 2 major bus ports to get to work in 2 hours and 15mins from home that day. There goes my one and a half hours of pay (and not forgetting the 54cents).

When I got into the last bus, I spoke to God to calm myself down. “Dear God, as I’ve learnt about forgiving others at Cell Group last night, I think I’ll graciously forgive the bus driver who’s at the dentist now. May he have a good teeth-fix. But can I please blog about this?”

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List of Lists

1. Wake up

2. End snooze

3. Make a mental list of what to do today starting from now until I get back to bed tonight

I’m a big list fan. I think it’s highly influenced by *ahem* some influential people in my life (especially this one person who writes lists for others to follow!!!). Knowing that I can be as random as marshmallow in your left sock, I think lists are quite useful to get things going. Since the subliminal conversion to organized listings, I’ve been having A6 sized (quarter of A4) papers on a mini clipboard ready for my pen to hit it with a long list. It could be things to do, things to buy, baking recipe, baking instructions, movies I want to watch, bills to pay, steps for closing at Subway, jobs to apply for, money I owe people, and a list of lists I have to create.

Sometimes it may not entirely work (you know unexpected circumstances may arise), but I still like to follow some things I scribbled on the little piece of paper. Just when you think I’m the most chaotic person you can find, well, guess you’ve got to search for another anarchic candidate when you see the list of my lists on the mini clipboard.

With the list, I won’t be too rigid about it. If I can’t do it, I can’t do it. No biggy. But one thing grave about making lists—when the list is about my doubts, my failures, my debts, my rejected applications, my incompetency, my mistakes… well, you get where I’m headed to.

I don’t write these down on paper to make myself read them out loud to evoke suicide. But it’s a mental list I’d automatically make which leads to mild depression. Seriously… not fun at all. And it is always a conscious effort for me to remove it from the ironically messed up head, to give space for joy and pure thrill for life. Susah payah…

Things to do:

1. Finish the ‘things to do’ list

2. Throw away mental list of negative points about self

3. Get a life. A listless one. Well… maybe not totally listless… but with useful lists

4. Remind readers to remove marshmallow from left sock

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