Cringe moments

Mulling over my cringe moments, I decided that I will not feel too embarrassed if I were to share cringe moments of my nearests and dearests. In the tradition of doing things that shouldn’t be done while there are other more urgent and important work with deadlines looming ahead, I decided to tag myself after reading Naz’s cringe moments. I decided that things like cringe moments, must not be kept to yourself or else you’d die laughing - alone.

Now, here goes.

Cringe moment 1 - The line snaking to the food counter of the canteen of Block 3C in Shah Alam was so long and the only thing that kept us in line was the smell of food and for us, the songs that they played over the loudspeakers. I was there, as usual with my group, Fatimah Abu Bakar, the celebrity mum of several celebrity children, Mia, Tini, Ina and Riza, but I don’t know whether Ena, our resident squatter was there. Anyway, soon they were playing my favorite song, Just One Look and there I was, in my kebaya, prim and proper, swaying and singing along.

“Just one look, and I felt so high, high, highhhhhhhhhhh….”

Unfortunately, when I hit the high note – highhhhhhh, they switched off the player, leaving me highiiiingggggg solo,piercing the silence in a hall of hungry diners. Heads looked up from their plates and eyes from all corners of the canteen were on me. My friends didn’t help either because after the initial shock, they fell about laughing. I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

Cringe moment 2 – During one of my visits home, I went to open a bank account. My friend who worked there decided to speed up matters and assigned a bank officer to help me. I gave my particulars and then waited while they processed the account. The young officer emerged again and asked me to sign on the dotted line, with instructions: Tolong tekan kuat-kuat sikit., kak.

I duly signed, tekan kuat-kuat as instructed, feeling quite flattered that he called me Kak. And within a few minutes, I was the owner of a new bank account with a bank book to show for it. I looked through but couldn’t find my signature and asked the friendly officer, “Eh signature tadi tak lekat ke? Nak sign lagi sekali?”

Needless to say, he was puzzled and my friend gave a nervous laugh and explained that the signature was actually invisible for security reasons.

Aiyyyoooo, Mak Cik macam nak pengsan situ jugak!

There are more but I’d rather tell about others’ cringe moments.

My sister and her friends were so looking forward to the wedding of one of their friend’s son. They were to bring with them all the hantarans and dressed to the nines, they proceeded from their hotel and searched for the house in Melaka. Seeing a house all lit up with marquees and lagu pengantin blaring from the sound system, they went in. As is the custom in Melaka, I was told, they were welcomed with fireworks lighting up the sky. They were ushered in and they placed their hantarans before them, and were delighted that they were early. They looked around looking for any familiar faces when a lady approached them, apologising profusely. They had gone to the wrong kenduri house!!!

As they left, the ‘real’ groom’s entourage arrived but all fireworks were used up and they entered the house without any fanfare.

My sister can compile a book on cringe moments. Here’s another one. Her husband drove her to the market. She got out of the car and told her husband to wait. After just one purchase, she came back, got into the car, took one look at the guy behind the wheel and both of them screamed with shock. She got into the wrong car. Her husband had driven ahead.

Now, with a mother like that, what do you expect of the daughter? Sorry Dena, I feel that I have to tell this. Dena is now in confinement after giving birth to a baby girl. Tahniah! Anyway, when she was doing some practical work at a firm, she was asked to man the phone. She was reading a novel and came to the part when the hero proposed and…the phone rang. She picked up the phone, eyes still glued to the dialogue in the book and said: Will you marry me?

I will end these embarrassing, cringe moments with my husband's story.

I was waiting for him at our usual meeting place, when I spotted him walking towards me. I thought something was wrong and of course, there was something wrong! He was wearing one black shoes with lace and on the other foot was one black slip ons!

He nearly caused me a heart attack, when at dinner with some friends, during discussions about plates etc, he announced that we used Durex plates. What he meant was Duralex!

And with that I tag and dare Pi Bani, Queen of the House, Puteri Kamaliah and Kay_Leeda and who ever wish to join in to tell us about their cringe moments.

Kak Teh's other cringe/weird moments are here:
Kak Teh vs Techie Thingies
The Weird Wide World of Kak Teh