8th December 2006 Friday

It was a pretty interesting pre-birthday bash actually… The day started out normal, but obviously the other birthday boy (Biawak) and me weren’t really in the mood to work. And while walking to lunch the day before, Wei (our new collegue) saw my new big ass black onyx stone ring while I was waving my hand frantically in the air, explaining something. She then exclaimed in her rapid-speed-train-Mandarin,

"Oh, is this the ring that we bought for your birthday gift?? Nice!!"

"Huh! A ring??" *fake gasp* "Really??!"

*Louder Gasp from Wei, Gaz & Biawak*

"Wei! Why you tell her! Haven give her the present la! Aiyoh!!"

I promised to act really surprised when I see my present later…. But I think my acting skills weren’t good enough. Wahahaha…. Anyway during lunch, no one knew exactly where we were going or what we were going to eat. The only hint we had from Lao ban niang was that we were going to Vivo city. So we had a discussion on where were the possible nice and expensive places to dine there.

"Huh! There ah….. like nothing posh there le! I only know got Sushi tei there le!"

"Wah lau, scare-lee Thai express! So cheap!"

"No la, maybe not Thai express…. Got other places in the basement what….. got foodcourt!"

"I have this feeling that we will end up at Carls Junior le….."

That stupid biawak kept saying that we will most probably end up at Carls Junior. I said if we really do… I will come after him. Surely our bosses can’t be that cheapo right?? Anyway, in the end, it was a Jap restaurant called Aki Hanabi or something along that line, that we decided on, based on some descriptions by the 3d Goddess who was asked to survey the potential dining places in Vivo city. The poor girl was out the whole day at her 3d max course and she was not in the best of moods as she was having bad cramps.

Think I was like a zombie for the whole day, as PP and I were in office till 3 plus in the morning the day before to finish up some presentation work. My eyes could hardly open and at one point in the afternoon, I decided to go the 11th floor (of our office) to get some water to drink. While refilling my 1 litre Evian bottle, I was doing the usual mix of 90% cold water, 10% hot water. And I think the bottle was not erm, well positioned and I "successfully" scalded my 4th finger on my left hand! So I quickly put the bottle down and let the cool tap water run over my finger to get rid of the heat. It helped for like, 5 mins, so I retreated to the 9th floor shortly after. After all, I had touched a test tube just AFTER I had heated it dry over the bunsen burner in the Science lab in Secondary school, so......... how bad could this scalded finger be?

I was wrong. Very wrong.

By the time I stepped out of the lift on the 9th floor, my finger started to burn internally, so I rushed to run my by-now-cooked finger under the cold water in the toilet. It helped for like, 2 mins and my finger started to have the burning sensation again, even under the cold water!! After a while, I decided I was wasting too much water so Iwent upstairs to get some burn cream. By the time I walked back to the living room to put down my bottle and faxes, the finger started burning up again, so I quickly rushed to the toilet once more. It then started to dawn upon me that this was more serious than I thought. Practically ran upstairs to the 11th floor again to get the admin auntie to pass me the burn cream, waving my left hand up and down frantically at the same time. She then kindly informed me that she had just threw the burn cream away recently as it had just expired. Great….. so what was I supposed to do next!

The admin auntie then exclaimed that toothpaste will help ease the pain and ran back to her table, except that she didn’t stock any toothpaste in the office.

"Oh, J*** brushes her teeth everyday one! I think you can get it from her!" came a helpful voice behind a pile of paper in front of the admin auntie’s table.

The admin auntie and I eagerly ran to J***’s table, which was like 8 footsteps away and demanded for her toothpaste. J*** was flabbergasted that we were suddenly demanding for her toothpaste and was silently afraid that we will also suddenly ask her for protection money. (Somemore she is in the accounts department)

After J*** handed over the life saver (toothpaste), the admin auntie gingerly squeezed out what seemed like, 10 days worth of toothpaste onto my now almost cooked and lobster red finger. The sudden cool sensation on my cooked finger was super reliving. I was instantly reminded of the Ricola’s mint TV ad that I saw some years back.

Thankful for the life saver, I happily went downstairs once again. I put on a pathetic face to Gaz and Biawak, and stuck out my snow-covered 4th finger to him and explained what happened. But midway while telling him my story, the burning sensation came back once again.

"Ahhhh!!! Hot hot hot hot!!!" I waved my left hand like a mad woman once again, and stamping my feet at the same time.

"Huh!! What…. What do you expect me to do! Go doctor la!"

After a few times of waving my hand up and down, I decided to google on how to cure scalding fingers. The 2nd hit in the search led me to a link that said soaking it in egg white for 20 mins with a towel wrapped around the scalded area. I hurriedly msn-ed Gaz and Biawak the link.

"It says egg whites are the best! Toothpaste is a no-no! How?? Where am I to get a damn egg in this office building…….. NOW??"

After whining for the next half hour and running to the toilet to run cold water over the finger, I decided to try my luck for egg whites on the 11th floor, after scavenging through the mini fridge and pantry area on the 9th floor. I walked into the 11th floor pantry and I see my 2nd lifesaver.

There were actually 2 eggs on the shelf. I can’t believe my luck!

I found a Delifrance takeaway cup and swifly popped 1 egg into the cup and hurried downstairs to the 9th floor where I got Gaz to help me separate the egg white. By then, our bosses had suddenly re-appeared after a long disappearance, so I shoved my entired left fist into the Delifrance takeaway cup. After 5 mins of soaking the finger in the egg white, I msn-ed Biawak once again.

"Eh, still pain le! Boohoohoo!!"

"Hello. It said to soak for 1 hour. It’s been like, 15 secs??!"

1 hour passed and I decided to discard of the cup. It felt much better, but the burning sensation still returns every half an hour. By 7 plus, Lao ban was hungry already, so he and lao ban niang went off to eat first (he was sick so he has to eat sick-people-food only) while, the O2 gang split up in 2 cabs. The first cab being me, Gaz, Posh senior and Wei, while the rest packed into the 2nd cab. In the cab, we asked Gaz what were the pubs in St James like.

"Oh, there are 4 pubs! I know 1 of them is called Dragonfly, then got Butterfly la then the other 2...... I’m not too sure!"

"Huh??! Why all the pubs’ names all got fly inside one!"

And for some strange reason, the 2nd cab arrived at Vivo city earlier than us despite us leaving earlier! Anyway, the Jap restaurant looked pretty posh and looking very expensive indeed. The menu was in a much different manner from our usual Genki/Sakae/Sushi-Tei form, where there didn’t seem to be any Bento sets or Udon sets available. We all figured that we can't get accustomed to the expensive way of eating Japanese food. So we got the waitress to give us recomendations and ate whatever was brought to the table.

And obviously we all weren’t used to them serving food slowly either… It was like eating at a Chinese wedding dinner….. except it was slower. The 2 bosses arrived midway during our 2nd dish and they quickly ordered like 8 dishes more when we told them that the food was arriving too slowly and it was too little. We seriously wanted to head to Carls Junior to fill our never ending tummies after that! But that didn’t happen after Lao ban niang ordered the extra dishes. Food was generally good, but I guess not good enough for me to return and pay that sort of money to just, eat.

I was presented with my birthday gift that was from the O2 and Longan gang combined..... Its....... 6 rings in 1!! I tried wearing 5 seperate rings on each finger and I looked like some human octopus. But this is how the ring looks like......

Nice?? Hee.... Big thanks to 3D Goddess who handpicked this ring for me as well! By the way, you can see my scalded 4th finger in the background. It still looks a little purplish till today. So sad!

The O2 gang plus the bosses headed to St James after that and we saw many Ah Beng kias outside the pub called DragonFly. Turns out there wasn’t any pub called Butterfly lor. Haha! Anyway, we walked round the whole powerhouse and we settled on a quiet pub behind. Lao ban niang ordered 2 buckets of beer for everyone, and initially I didn’t take a bottle to drink, as I really hate beer. But after seeing everyone around me drinking happily, and I was feeling thirsty, I decided to take a bottle….. to quench my thirst! Poor biawak didn’t drink as he doesn’t like alcohol as well and of course the sick birthday boy (lao ban) didn’t drink either. Gaz then decided to order a mocktail for him called "Virgin Mary". Right.

Turns out Virgin Mary was pretty horrible. It tasted like a terrible combination of stale tobasco sauce with tomato and a hint of lemon, with the rim of the glass covered in salt. Biawak decided that he didn’t like "virgins" and preferred the "experienced ones" after his drink. Ugh. Anyway, I dunno what happened after that, but somehow his drink became the "punishment" for the No. 7 game that PP came up with. Apparently how this game goes about is it starts off with a person saying, for eg, no. 1. The next person continues the number sequence, but when it comes to the no. 7, or any number that are multiples of 7, like 14, 28, 35 or even non multiples of 7 like 17 or 27, that person must say, 7 up! And the cycle reverses in the opposite direction that it started off. The loser who says the number wrongly or is silent for more than 2 secs will have to take the punishment of drinking the Virgin Mary drink.

Being the blur queen I am, I scored a hat trick by saying all the numbers wrongly and even when it was my turn to start, I started with the number 28!!! Which resulted in the whole gang laughing and almost falling off their seats. Geeesssh…… so loser! When it came to the one last gulp, Lao ban niang announced,

"Ok ah, the next person who kena, have to driiiiink the leftover ahhh….. and also suck the lemon (piece) dry!! Wahahahhaaaaaaa!!" she laughs evily, while the rest of us gasp loudly.

Turns out that she was stumped when it came to her turn and she had to drink THE LAST GULP. Our entire group roared with laughter and reminded her that she had to SUCK THE LEMON DRY. She gulped down the drink sportingly after swearing KNN………. under her breath. Lao ban niang……. You are the best!!

The night did not end here as 4 of us retreated to our Posh senior’s house after that. But I am seriously tired of typing and I can’t feel my fingers anymore, so I shall continue the Birthday bash stories tomorrow…. Hopefully!