Merepek

Got a call from HQ last Friday evening giving me a propect. Mr R, to follow up on.

Mr R had called up HQ 3 times over the past 2 weeks requesting to see a salesperson as he is very interested to find out more about our product and when he made the latest call, he actually lambasted the person taking his call because no one contacted him at all. Well, Ms A from HQ told me that they dared not refer his call to any one of us because they find Mr R's request a bit odd, Mr R wanted to see only 'a very experienced young, Chinese female'. Surelah, HQ was taken back abit; is he 'itchy' or what?

Anyway, I contacted Mr R and met him at McD's Bangsar at 8pm yesterday. He looks pleasant but a bit quirky in his behaviour; he has this involuntary face twitches and head swings. As I went through my presentation, he took a call (apparently on 'vibra mode' but I believed there was no one on the other end) and told the caller he would be late to meet up with him/her. He hurried me on the presentation saying he had to go off soon. I did the best I could and took his questions. This chap, I begin to suspect, has a hobby; i.e. to meet up with salespersonnel in my industry - he can point ahead of me to an exact word in the sales brochure, a feature of the product I'm yet to explain, tell me and also question me about my competitors, etc., and then he started shooting personal questions; how old am I, married or not, got how many kids, where I live so on and so forth. I politely and firmly told him off that I am not obliged to answer any personal questions and if there is no further relevent questions, I bid him good night.

Then he said 'You don't look fortyish lah. You bluff or not?'

NM!! What lah, he expected me to look like having thinning grey hair, missing teeth, bad eyes, wrinkled face, hunched and using a walking stick, is it?

Got to meet someone this morning at 9.00am near Ampang Point, so thought that if I start out at about 7.40am I should arrive in good time. LDP was OK with little hick-ups here and there but drove smack into a horrendous traffic snarl along the MRR. Aisehman! Literally crawling on the highway burning up fuel and early in the morning mood also turn bad ledi. Pay toll also jammed, don't pay toll get into worse jam and heard that toll rates may increase again! I was 15 mins late for my appointment - took me something like one & half hours to cover Damansara to Ampang.

Thank God! I don't work regular hours (as in 9 to 5), so I am normally on the road only after 9.15am and scoot home before 5.30pm. Friends and relatives from smaller towns sometimes asked how we city people tolerate spending hours commuting and some more gotta pay at so many toll gates. Told my folks in hometown that it is not unusual for me to pay about RM15 per day(sometimes more) for toll and parking - Toll RM1.50 here, RM1.00 there and another RM2.70 there and $$$$$ there, there, there....... plus parking fees everywhere. ' Like that, your gaji cukup makan ah?' they asked. What to do, I dunno how to ride a kapchai lah. Also scared shit of all the big lorries, buses, garbage trucks, delivery vans etc. etc

Make do only lah!

Aaargh! Where the hell did I put it? Been searching high and low, digging into cupboards and drawers for the past hour or so and I just cannot recall where I kept them. Recalled that I did see them lying around somewhere not too long ago when I was searching for something else then. Now that I want to use them, I just cannot for the life of me remember where I last saw them.

I can be quite absentminded at times and the recent packing, shifting and unpacking (did some minor repairs/renovation to the house), makes it worse. Many items were given away, and honestly, those that I now cannot find, I'm not too sure if I've sent them off or re-stacked in an obscure corner of the new cabinet. Might even have thrown them away.

My memory is soooo bad.

Was at a Shila's party yesterday, and as usual it's opportunity to catch up with many others there. I saw Shila's mom, went to say hello and was introduced to her neighbour, another Malay lady. It has been quite a while since we last met and of course, there were plenty to share and update on. The cute thing was that 3 of us, 2 Malay ladies and I, a Chinese nyonyapenang were conversing in dialects; Shila's mom spoke Cantonese and Hakka and her fren Hokkien, while I responded in local Malay lingo, Hokkien, Cantonese and a smattering of Hakka. The two ladies picked up the dialects when they were growing up in their kampungs in North and had many Chinese neighbours. Since relocating to KL many years ago, both of them hardly get the chance to speak dialects, so when we met yesterday, it was a blast. Others at the party who overheard our banter were quite amused - different colour, different background, different age group, different religious beliefs, different culture but thoroughly enjoying each other's company.

Been reading blogs for the past couple of months and I find it kinda addictive - humour, sadness, uplifting, enlightening, bruderhood, sistahood, etc...... all I enjoy. So I thought I'd start my own blog to 'merepek' also.

Being so low-tech, I gotta enlist my son's help to get this going. See, tables are slowly turning already; when the kids are small, Mama teach and guide them, now they teach Mama many things. Anyway, I also look forward to learn more from all the sifus in the blogosphere.