About Nude Not Naked

‘Miss Tan, you’ve got to help me,’ I bleated into the phone. The heavy traffic noise muffled her replies, thus compounding my frustrations. ‘The guy’s brother keeps calling me at every hour!’



*
Two Tuesdays ago some smart 19 year old was fetching his chick from work. I guess he was too excited at the prospect of being a slave driver to his pretty girlfriend that he pushed the gas pedal instead of the usual brake pedal. We were all stuck in heavy traffic and everything was at a standstill. The cars in front of me were all on brake. I was on brake when this 19 year old accidentally pressed ‘GO!’.

PY got out of the car and approached the boy. He was tall and lanky. If he was nervous, he surely did not show it. He was cool and composed, stepping out of his Mercedes. Not your average college kid who knocked his daddy’s car for the first time, if you know what I mean. He took out his MyKad when PY asked him for verification. He even corrected PY when she took down the car registration number. (See, what I mean about being cool and composed?). Such is the innocence of a 19 year old in puppy love with his anxious looking girlfriend at the passenger seat.

‘Thank you,’ I said to the boy as I walked back to my car. What the fuck am I doing, I asked myself. The guy knocked my car and I am bloody thanking him for it.



*
I received a call from MNG, informing me that they were having a pre-sales event. So after the short roadside stint, we packed up and headed to MNG. I sat on a chair, thinking about the incident while PY was busy trying on some clothes on 50% discount. I figured that a police report should be made to ensure that both parties were clear on the facts. I found his MyKad producing stint troubling. You see, I would have protested like hell, if anyone asked for my MyKad but the 19 year old flipped his MyKad out like he would flip out his Platinum Card at his girlfriend's every request.

The accident occurred at 2:18 p.m. but by 4 p.m. his brother took over the communications, which started out quite normal and turned abnormal as the minutes and hours passed.

I finished the police report at 6 p.m. and he called. ‘Come out for coffee lah,’ he said. ‘My treat, ok. You bring your girlfriends and I treat you three ladies to coffee. This is very small matter only’.

He called again at every hour and at 9 p.m. he said, ‘Where are you staying? Come out for some tea or something?’ I politely declined his generous offer for coffee, tea, dinner or even friendship or companionship or all four at once. Come on, I might have been crazy enough to pick Wouter and two of his companions from a 7-11 on Saturday night but I was not crazy enough to go for a coffee session with the brother of the guy who ever so lightly bumped into my car, costing a repair of RM2000.00.

Thank goodness I habitually silenced my mobile at night because he kept calling till past 1 a.m. which then led me to call my Honda sales representative for dear help the following morning.



*
‘Miss Tan, you’ve got to help me,’ I bleated into the phone. The heavy traffic noise muffled her replies, thus compounding my frustrations. ‘The guy’s brother keeps calling me at every hour!’

‘Aiyah, maybe he wants to go out with a pretty girl?’ she said. ‘Never mind, I ask Mr. Muthu to help you with the insurance claim and fix your car, ok? Just inform the guy that your insurance company is taking over.’

I was relieved when I saw Muthu. He had this grin on his face when I greeted him. ‘Mr. Muthu, you are going to return my car to her pretty former glory?’ I asked. He smiled, walked to the workshop, then came out with a piece of chalk and a digital camera. He took a good look at the back end of my car and proceeded to draw many crosses on the rear bumper.

‘Wah Muthu,’ I said, looking at the many crosses, then looking at him. ‘That’s a lot of X…’. My bumper looked like a LV Monogram bag, with the exception that the repeated design was ‘X’ instead of ‘LV’. He explained that he had to indicate the areas that needed fixing, so insurance claims could be made on my behalf. ‘Change the whole bumper. Spray and knock,’ he concluded.



*
I passed my documents to him, so he could process the claims. ‘Eh, can photocopy extra set for me or not?’ I asked. ‘I have to see the sergeant this afternoon’.

‘Why you need to see the sergeant?’ Muthu asked. His eyes were looking intently into mine. Darkest shade of black, I thought. Muthu had such dark eyes and a head full of hair that was dutifully combed back. He looked like a version of Ken Doll (Barbie’s boyfriend) - just perhaps he was a little darker and not as proportionately tall. But he had a cheerful and friendly face and he responded efficiently to my queries. (These were my definition of good customer service).

‘Dunno. The sergeant said I needed to see him a few days later with copies of my driving licence, insurance documents and MyKad.’

‘But you don’t need to see him again. There is no such procedure,’ he said. Heads popped out of office cubicles and even the cashier girl placed her face flat against the glass separating her from the world. ‘WHAT?!’ boomed right through the whole showroom. Customers turned to look to Muthu and I. Silence crawled into every space in the big and airy showroom.

‘What? I don’t have to bloody visit him again? I hate doing all this official paperwork mumbo jumbo thing and he nearly costed me an afternoon!’

‘Maybe he thought you were pretty,’ Muthu said, then he grinned his sheepish grin.

I did not visit the sergeant later that afternoon. The sergeant did not call either, so I guess it was not an important 2nd visit after all. I had tea with my father and was home by 7 p.m.



*
‘I need to get to work,’ I said after signing the insurance claim documents.

‘You are working?’ Muthu asked. He said the word ‘work’ as if it was some alien micro organism attached to my right shoulder.

‘Obviously! Who will pay for my car, if I am not working?’ I asked, shrugging my shoulders. I got up and zipped up my blood red Rosewood bag.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to work, like everybody else?’ I said. I stressed on the word “work”. Muthu grinned again. ‘Where do you think I am going?’

‘Dunno. I figured a girl like you never need to work,’ Muthu said, then stamping the document that I just authorized. The conversation ended, just the same way it started.

Just as I pushed through the glass door, Muthu said ‘Come back next week. I’ll inform you of the repair date’.