Friday, November 17, 2017

Small miracles happen.

Friday 17 November 2017.


Small miracles happen.

No earth-shattering moments,  but miraculous all the same.

Thursday, I had to sacrifice my golf and my fiddling with the internet to send my only daughter to Ipoh for her High Court appearance Friday. Hanif was engaged elsewhere, and I couldn't let my daughter drive alone for the longish distance.

Friday noon I had to make a bigger compromise by converting the compulsory Friday prayers into the solat musaffir jamak-kathar, may Allah Forgive me. Maybe what happened later was some sort of message for me, but I offered a sujud in thanks later that day.

We arrived home, the three of us minus Dekna we dropped off at the AG's in Putrajaya around 1.30. It was now about a quarter-past two, and a slight drizzle fell. As usual, the wife scooted into the house with 3-year-old Wafa, and there was just poor me to unload, stack and store the stuff we managed to collect the last two days on the road. Because of the hands-full situation, I just put the 2 bunches of house keys and car keys on the boot of the old Volvo that was left parked in the porch all the while. I must have placed the 2 sets of keys right up to the edge of the Volvo's back glass screen, where there is a slight indention between the glass screen and the top of the boot. That, in hindsight, must have made the keys less slippery on that boot top. That the house keys were in a leather-like key-holder, and the car keys were in a ring with a designer key-strap may have also helped.

Anyway, while I went to clear the stuff into my den and the kitchen, the wife hurried to change to go for her precious Pekerti meeting at the Pekerti Hall about 2 K away. I got Wafa some chocolate and a drink she wanted, conscious that I needed to perform my already delayed prayers. As I went back to my den and started to sort out the debris, I remembered to look for the keys as is my habit when returning home. By then the wife had, I vaguely remembered hearing, driven out. As usual, she didn't check for anything before putting the key in the starter switch and starting the car. Now I realized, suddenly, the keys were not where I expected to find them, either on my writing table or on the cupboard ledge, their usual spot. I went outside the den and couldn't find them on the centre dining table or the decorative side-table, the only two likely places in the sitting room. With sudden panic I rushed outside into the car porch, to see maybe the keys were on the two tables there, while suddenly remembering maybe I had put them on the boot-top of the Volvo, which was by now no longer there ! My heart sank when I now realized they had been left on the Volvo and I had forgotten about them. And now they were already probably lost.

In TDS, with several new additions, there are probably 100 road bumps, installed to cut down the speeding vehicles moving about the housing estate. To go to the Pekerti Hall, you have to also go through narrow, congested roads that lead to the heavy Ampang main road, through about 3-4 traffic lights, and a U-turn to the Klana Resort and the Hall some 300 m from there. What I'm saying is, if the wife, because she was late, sped through the bumps and the swerves and sharp turns, there was no reason for anything on the flat top of the car boot not to slip off, fall on the road and get lost forever!

Once I accepted that I had left the keys on the top of the boot cover, I did the only thing left to do - call the wife on her mobile phone.

Now, this wonderful contraption is not attended to by my wife like normal people. 50% of the time, calls are unanswered. The rest of the time the device is left somewhere else. In other words, if getting her on the phone is that important, don't hold your breath!

But this time, one ring, or maybe 2, and she answered! I said to check on the boot-top straight away for the keys. I had time to scold her why she doesn't check the car before driving off, as if that was her fault!

I called Wafa, grabbed an umbrella, took the spare house key (her spare key she's supposed to always take with her, and this time didn't), and was about to lock the house door and somehow try to trace the car track from the house to the road junction at the "Angsana" and look for 2 tiny bunches of keys on the road or on the side of the road - a scheme that looked hopeless even before it started, when Idah called back. "The keys are here" she said.

I called Dekna and related the whole thing, more out of relief than anything else.


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