Khaled Talib's Blog, page 14

Death Quote

This was years ago, I attended a church funeral of an industry colleague’s husband. I was in the same car as the widow when another passenger, a woman, made a joke about something. The widow’s reply left me wondering for years if she knew what she said or was it lost in translation somehow within the Singapore context. I didn’t dare ask, but her exact words were, “Oh, please let me play the role of the grieving wife.”

I just kept looking out the car window throughout the journey… brain freeze.

 

Noise, noise, everywhere!

I was walking down the street just now when I suddenly heard a little girl whining.Then came the mother’s voice telling her to stop embarrassing herself in public.

I continued walking toward the traffic light and waited for the light to change. The whining drew closer. I turned and saw the little girl pulling her mother’s arm, pleading for something. The mother, hiding under an umbrella from the day’s heat, ignored her daughter.

I could hear my little voice screaming, “Stop whining, will you! There’s enough noise in the world already!” But of course, I didn’t say anything. I just stood there with that angelic face and pretended I was listening to a choir.

As I waited to cross the road, I noticed a book in the little girl’s other hand: Enid Blyton’s A Book of Naughty Children.

I tell you, it t took a lot of strength to restrain that bubble of laughter.

A Surprise Visitor

This happened back in the 80s. On the eve of Christmas, about 3 o’ clock in the afternoon, my family members and I were having coffee at the back of the house when we alerted by a trespasser. We lived smack in the middle of the city near the shopping belt. The trespasser was a woolly sheep.

It ran straight to us, paused, then went to the back of the house. It was trying to hide. All this while, we were quiet, thinking maybe our eyes were playing tricks with us. Maybe it was the coffee.

Minutes later, some men from a nearby hotel came and asked us about the sheep.

It seems the sheep was part of the hotel’s Christmas decoration. It took five men to convince the sheep to go back with them.

Do you believe in fate?

Met an Iraqi academic in Singapore.

He spent a decade as a military officer during the Iran-Iraq war. Rockets, bullets used to fly over him like nothing, he said. Not even a scratch. Even the RPGs and the jets couldn’t get him when he used to drive a jeep across the desert.

Then he comes to Singapore. A few months later, he gets hit by a taxi that jumped the curb. He ends up in a hospital with a foot fracture.

I don’t know. If you don’t believe in fate, maybe it’s time to reconsider?

Lights out!

 

This happened to me a few years ago here in Singapore. I was introduced to a female executive who did not pay attention to my presence. But she had the audacity to ask me questions while shifting her eyes left and right. So I decided to bounce her around. She didn’t even know what hit her. The conversation went like this:

Singapore Female Executive: So what do you do?

Me: I am the public relations consultant for Hamas.

Singapore Female Executive: What exactly do you do?

Me: Well, each time they launch a suicide bomber, I will issue a press statement.

Singapore Female Executive: Oh, that’s interesting, where’s your office?

Me: Shenton Way (Singapore Business District).

Singapore Female Executive: Oh, okay.

Me: Ya.

So that’s why he was staring at me…

Did I ever tell you of the time a taxi driver here in Singapore looked at me in a funny way?

Throughout the journey he kept looking at me in the rear view mirror. I told myself if this guy tries anything, I’ll show him my Chuck Norris moves.

When we arrived at the destination, he took out a pen and paper, turned around, and asked me for the name of the perfume I was wearing. That was it… that’s all he wanted.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Smokescreen

1)The novel was supposed to be set in a dystopian era.

2)The American ambassador, Michael Dexter, was initially a Caucasian. The African-American was another CIA agent named “Charlie Brown.” The characters were merged into one to simplify the plot.

3)The ambassador’s mansion was the actual property of the author’s grandfather.

4)An action scene in Manhattan, New York, was removed because it was deemed “redundant.”

5)The protagonist Jethro Westrope (Jet West) was initially known as James Gent, a brand for a toiletry company.

6)The car Jet West was driving was initially a Pagani Zonda. It was changed to an MX-5 to accommodate his journalist salary.

7)The cat described in a Cairo scene is based on an actual character.

8)The secret underground base in Singapore is inspired by an actual location.

9)The mysterious island with the citadel is inspired by the old Dutch fortress, Fort Belgica, located in the Moluccas islands, Indonesia.

10)The novel is riddled with secret messages.

Shhh… don’t tell anybody.

From The Horse’s Mouth

There is a bad habit in Singapore among employees to skip work by using the excuse that someone in their family died.

Usually when you attend a funeral here, you can collect a vouchsafe receipt to validate your claim.

However, some people have managed to bypass this official document, usually based on trust.

Anyway, here’s a real story about a man who told his boss he needed time off during the weekday to accompany his father for medical checkup. The employer didn’t think twice about relieving the man.

On one occasion the employee didn’t show up for a week straight. Everyone tried to contact him, but they couldn’t. He switched off his cell phone.

When someone finally got hold of him, he gave the excuse his father had died.

Unfortunately, the boss found out his employee had been telling a cock and bull story when the father turned out to be very much alive.

Apparently, the employee has been spending time at the race course. It got so exciting he decided what’s a few more days?

My bizarre encounter with a Singapore “author”

Met a young man here in Singapore, extremely cocky fellow, who claimed he has written 25 suspense novels.

I couldn’t selfie the shock on my face, but I told him he must be some kind of a prodigy or a super genius to have written 25 suspense novels by that age. I asked him for his website address, and he said it’s not ready yet.

He then asked me what I did for a living, so I said: “I’m a fisherman. I have my days, you know — tried to catch a Marlin near the Indonesian waters. Took me several days. I finally got the Marlin. But by the time I came back to shore, it was all bones. The sharks, you know.”

He didn’t get it.

Special Announcement

 

Airport

While waiting for my flight back to Singapore at the New Delhi airport a few years ago, the announcements were replaced by people singing in real time.

I walked up to a sales staff behind a counter to ask what was going on. Was there some kind of festival today?

Looking embarrassed, she explained the office where the announcements were being made had been hijacked by some passengers who were fed up with flight delays.

All I said was, “I see… well, that makes life more interesting.”