UNPREDICTABLE

Me with my new rimless glasses

The rubble of the collapsed pre-war shoplots as seen from the optical shop

On Friday evening I had packed all my stuff, got into my car to go home to Ipoh for the weekend. I drove until I the junction to the main trunk road and then I saw tiny droplets of rain on my windscreen. The time was around 7.30 p.m. I just had an uneasy feeling and decided to turn the car around to go back to my house in Sitiawan. I called my mum and aunt to tell them I would only be going back on Saturday morning.

I reached Ipoh at 9.30 a.m. After having breakfast and then visiting the farmer's market, I drove to the optician to get the new glasses from the optician. When we reached there I told my elders that the demolition people did not do a good job of tearing down the prewar shophouses which were located near the optical shop located along Jalan Kamaruddin in Fair Park. They too said that it was badly done.

We were later to find out from reading the newspaper that the whole row of houses had collapsed on Friday night at around 9.30 p.m. Thank goodness I did not go back home on Friday for there was a possibility that I would have gone with my mum and aunt to get my new glasses after we had dinner. However I think that I might not have gone to get the glasses even if I had gone home as my Aunt Linda would want to be home at 9.30 p.m. to watch the Cantonese drama serial, Moonlight Resonance. The show lasts for an hour until 10.30 p.m. Heh!Heh! I was only trying to make my postes interesting.

Anyway, two young men died and one was injured because part of the prewar building collapsed on their car. The young men who were all in their twenties were on their way for dinner at the DBI foodstalls and the driver (who survived) stopped when the lights turned red. It seemed that three other vehicles were also damaged but the passengers were unhurt. Life is unpredictable, isn't it?