Uninvited

Yesterday my neighbour called me at work to ask if I’ve asked anyone to come over to trim the grass. Apparently some elderly guy came knocking asking if anyone called for his services. I said no, if I ever want to do that, there’d be someone around to supervise, either myself or my parents. Why would anyone cut the grass when the house occupant is not around, how would he get paid anyway?!

Then yesterday evening, as I was about to take my shower, Lin called. We were happily chatting when I heard some funny noises. As I mentioned, I was about to shower and yes, I was like half-naked then. So I hastily put on my clothes - with one hand, mind you, the other was cradling the phone! - and guess what, there were some guys outside with a black car. I opened the sliding door, barely able to control my anger and demanded, ‘Yes?’ and they asked if some Mr Stevens was around and I went, ‘What?!’ and they repeated the question and I said, ‘No. And can you please stop throwing stones at my house please!’ I was so pissed. Later in the shower I thought of all the things I should’ve screamed at them like ‘What the hell do you think you're doing?!!’, ‘What’s with the idea of throwing stones at people's houses huh?!’, ‘How would you like it if people throw stones at your car?!’, ‘If you had broken my sliding door, I’d demand that you bear the repair costs!’, ‘Don’t you have any manners and call out Hello as a greeting instead of throwing stones at people’s houses?’ etc. Grrrrrr...

I suspect Mr Stevens is either a fictional character hastily thought of to lure me out of the house or a real person running away from loan sharks [aka Ah Long] who gives away my house address to those thugs.

My other neighbour once told me that some people once came over during office hours, stood outside my gate and started throwing stones too at my house. What the heck, if you wanna get attention, surely that is a very rude way of getting it. Seriously, don't people have manners anymore?! The guys last night didn't sound local, spoke with good English in some foreign accent [not the usual foreign immigrant lingo or accent] so the least they could do was to call out, ‘Hello?’ a few times. For Muslims, of course, they should give Salam. And I do have an Assalamualaikum sign outside my door too. Man, I was just so pissed at them and annoyed that I didn’t berate them enough for having the cheek and temerity to get my attention like that. What a pity, you speak good English, drive a big car but lack good manners. To me, that only points to how uncouth, uncultured and unrefined you actually are and the lack of good values and manners you have which your material possessions can never compensate for.

Some people really need the guidebooks Manners for Dummies, The Idiot’s Guide to Manners or Manners 101. A pity you can’t buy those kind of books anywhere though.

I had a disturbing dream last night where I dreamt that I was a witness to a few murders. The murderess [yes, it was a she!] pretended she couldn’t walk without the help of a walking stick. When she found out I had witnessed her brutal killings, she hunted me down. I was running through dark corridors and alleys trying to escape her and in the end, I only just managed to stop her. And to add more twist, I was having a relationship with the murderess’ son [no one I know from my reality male friends!] and was torn between turning his mother in to the authorities or let her continue on her killing spree.

I reckon my subconscious mind was still rattled with the mannerless thugs. I don’t think the dream was remotely related to the Ludlum novel I’m currently [still] reading as I’ve read quite a few Ludlum novels thus far [and have a few more waiting for me!] and never had such disturbing dreams before.