Gengsi Dong!

Jalan-jalan di mall…

“Gila ya, menjelang Lebaran, makin rame aja nih mall. Pada belanja baju semua, tuh liat, udah ajam setengah sembilan (malam) aja masih banyak mobil yang ngantri masuk parkiran.”

Lewatin Bread Talk dan J.Co (sambil bersungut-sungut karena orang pada ngantri sembarangan bikin susah lewat yang lain)

“Duh ni tempat kaga pernah sepi yeh…padahal rasanya juga gak enak-enak banget, kaga bosen apa makan roti mulu? mending beli nasi Padang!”

Lewatin Batik Keris…

“…kok toko ini tetep sepi ya, kesian banget…”

“Mungkin mahal-mahal kali harganya…(untuk ukuran batik, gitu loh).”

“Loh, Bread Talk sama J.Co juga mahal, tapi orang tetep aja pada ngantri beli tuh! (logikanya beli lima potong roti di Bread Talk aja juga udah bisa dapat satu setel baju batik)”

“Wah itu seh masalah gengsi. Kalo roti doang aja belinya di Bread Talk kan rasanya gimanaaa gitu… tapi kalo batik? Mana ada gengsinya…ya cuma batik doang gitu loh, semua orang juga punya, boro-boro mau beli, make juga jarang…”

You.

“You should get more work experiences while you’re still young.”

Well, I don’t feel young. The more I put more thought into working for someone else – again – the older and more incapable I feel of my life. Another stupid job-hunting process. Another stupid psycho-test to go through. Another stupid replaceable position filled with mindless useless meetings and middle-aged idiots wanting their asses to be worshiped.

“You must be a better leader than me, otherwise what would happen to my business?”

Gee, thanks. Didn’t realize all those years I spent overseas were meant as hidden investment which I must pay back later. Don’t you think I have my own passion to pursue? Wasn’t it you who taught me to be a good decision-maker and to do what I love doing? Then why are you making your mind up for me?

“I always sacrifice everything for everybody else! I never even care about myself! And this is how you repay me?”

I never wanted you not to not care about yourself. I’m actually getting sick of you trying to make fuss on everything else but ignoring your own happiness. Why bother owning a company and everything if you can’t even spare some thought into giving something back to yourself?

“I have all these assets worth millions and money to circulate. I’m delaying payments for legitimate reasons. You must understand.”

No, I don’t understand. All you talk about is money, money, money and how you have to invest in this and that and circulate it this way and that, in order to get even more money. I’m sick of hearing about it. The more you get, the more dissatisfied you feel. I wonder how you even sleep at nights. And then I realized that you don’t.

“I think that cousin of yours is smart for nailing such a rich boyfriend who owns so many companies. She will never live in hardship.”

Yes, she is smart, because she realizes head on that all she has is her looks and there is nothing left inside that empty little head of hers. Yes, she will never live in hardship, but in case you forget, money doesn’t buy happiness. Don’t forget that you were once poor yourself. Why get on such high horse and think that you are so different from those who are beneath you?

“The reason why parents always take sides on the child who is less fortunate is because they know that child needs more help than the others.”

Please, by all means, spoil that child with every single strength that you can find. After all, that’s how it has always been since I was young. But don’t expect that spoilt brat would have an epiphany and change for the better – because the only person who is ruining his future and mentality, is you.

“Why don’t you help around here and expand my business like many other young ones who’ve made their parents proud by doing so.”

No, thank you. Why would I want to work for a person who doesn’t ever listen and trust my ideas. I’ve been through it before and it’s the most tiring job in the world – trying to convince people that you are capable. You either believe it or you don’t. It’s not that hard. After all, didn’t you pride yourself in ‘knowing’ people’s talents and characters? That’s why you sent me overseas, wasn’t it? I don’t even care whether or not you are proud of me. Not anymore.

You. The one who is standing on top – I’m scared that you might fall, and I wouldn’t want to be there to catch you.

Because I don’t know you anymore.

We Cordially Invite You To …

A wedding reception. It’s the event where no one is seemed to have a good time, except the bride and groom, and that I’m not even sure of.

Everyone who attends is expected to dress up to the nines, turn up on time and wait for the obligatory ‘walk down the red carpet’ bit, the cutting-up and exchanging slices of cake, and the moronic MC who always tries to get a bit of a show happening by making the couple kiss and embarrass themselves with the awkwardness of having to display something so private in front of the attendee.

In the meantime, the people get anxious because they can’t wait for the whole thing to be over so that they can hit the buffet and check out all the good food before they’re all wiped out. But alas, there is still one step to do before hunger can be thoroughly satisfied; the ridiculous queuing up the throne-like chair where the newlyweds and their parents sit in order to congratulate them – in other words, demonstrating the invited of their presence, as if saying “Look, I’m here, OK. Now can we just get the hell out of here and eat because that’s the only reason why I even bother coming.”

Now – the dressing up bit was the one part I don’t understand. I have rarely seen people turning up to wedding receptions looking very well-dressed and appropriate. It just seems to me that people always get the dress code wrong.

The fat girls walk around showing off their flabs because their entire existence are swathed in such tight clothing, as if the night’s theme was spare tires and the waiters were serving muffin squirts. The skinny ones turn up even more odd looking in all covered-up, nun-like styles of dresses, as if they are ashamed of the state of their skinniness.

Then there are those awkward ones who have visible pantylines shown very visibly from behind (you’d think that because these girls can afford such nice dresses they are also familiar with the concept of g-strings!), and those who have unsightly clear bra straps dragging down their backs which caused them to repeatedly walking around and adjusting at the same time. But those are not so bad compared to the anorexic-looking girls who look like they might just fall off and faint in any second.

Not forgetting also the ones who tickle my sense of humor – girls who drag around their boyfriends everywhere as if those boys were accessories and give murderous looks to the other girls in the room as if any female creature is out to steal their boyfriends, old ladies who refuse the fact that they are old and therefore opt to dress up like teeny-boppers going on a prom night but end up looking like drag queens, single men with love handles and weird hairstyles, and even more single men with weirder sense of style, and I seriously don’t know why these men think this is a good idea – yep, it’s the shirt collar-over-the-suit look, which they probably think is very chic, very ‘in’, very now while I’m thinking (and nodding at the same time as in, okay, I dig you), “Very John Travolta in Grease, very pimped up look, though the only things missing are the fur coat, the Panama hat, the mucho bling-bling and the whores.”

I’m telling you, the very sight of these people are enough to put me off food. My appetite thoroughly goes out of the window the minute I see the left-overs on some greedy bastard’s dirty plates who has taken every single item on the menu just because he feels like it, spoilt brats who run around dangerously followed frantically by their babysitters, and the waiters cleaning up the messy, greased-up plates and glasses full of disgusting looking leftovers. And there are queues everywhere – queues to the buffet, queues to the toilet, queues to even get out of the building.

The whole thing is like a slow-torturing process for me and it makes me rethink the whole idea of anyone ever having a wedding reception.

The image of me slumped down in front of the telly wearing my dags seems way much better than attending anything disastrous like what I’ve described above. I can’t wait to kick my heels off, wipe the rag off my face – who am I kidding? – and just be.

Anywhere, but there.

Ironically…

If being an overseas graduate means easily nailing a good job, then I’d say mine was a bit of an oddball kind. When I came back for good three years ago, it took me almost a year to get a job at a real corporate company, and a several agonizing months before that were filled with endlessly sending out job applications via e-mails or post.

You’d think that holding a Bachelor degree in Multimedia (Media Studies) would easily get me a job somewhere fancy like, ooh, I don’t know, a television station or something? What’s with my English-speaking fluency and all. Because there are more chance for an overseas graduate to nail a job rather than those who are locally graduated.

Right?

I swear to God, if I get to charge a dollar for each time someone says the same thing, I’d be the richest woman in the country (because if converted into Rupiah I could get a bowl of noodles with meatballs complete with a glass of hot tea).

Well, you’re in for a bit of a shock, intcha?

My working experiences since coming back three years ago were:

1. Being a fashion assistant at a Fashion House in Panglima Polim and got ‘let go’ – to put it mildly – after a mere three days. I think the designer found me too obnoxious for her liking.

2. An English teacher in Jakarta CBD area with very, very small income (hint: less than 2 million, and pay was not always on time). I felt sorry for my students because they paid so much and got so little since the other teachers were still confused to differentiate ‘she’ from ‘he’ in between conversation practices.

3. A Packaging Development Officer at a Pharmaceutical company (say what?) – lasted 1,6 years and learned that the corporate world, as depicted marvelously in Dilbert, was full of lickarses and morons with cum-laude titles. The only good thing that place brought me was my beau.

When beau was about to resign, within a week he sent out applications and got accepted straight away into a multinational company with a very, very good salary. Mucho dinero than I would ever make.

Now this is my beau’s story; He was locally graduated, although from a very good university that actually got ranked at number four hundred something as one of the best universities in the world (and quite shockingly, mine was not even listed) as a chemical engineer, which he’d financed himself by working as a lab analyst by day and taking night classes.

And my story; studied overseas for six years and graduated with an overseas degree and various odd part-time work experiences overseas and locally. When I tried my luck in applying for another positions elsewhere, all I got was an interview from a futures exchange company that conned many people into investing millions and losing them all.

Go figure.

@#&*^&#@##!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I can say is: !#$$&&*&%$@#!$!$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, here’s why; On my way to the bank yesterday afternoon, I was driving and I missed the turn which led me to the building so I had to do a U-turn because the bank was on the opposite of the road.

So I indicated the right-signal slowly…carefully …and yes, it was legal to do a U-turn.

And out of nowhere this stupid fucking motorbike crashed right into the right side of my car and I am pleased to say the passenger on it both fell down hard to the ground. I wound my window open and yelled, “Kan saya udah pasang sen ke kanan!!! Gimana seh?!?!?!” (Yeah, not the best line but however)

They got up quickly and scuttled off, leaving me shaking and about to explode with rage. My heart was pounding so quickly and I swore and hoped to God they both crashed and died or something because I was really, very pissed off. I wouldn’t even think about how much damage they would have caused to the car because already I was distressed and my nerves were shot to shit.

My heart sunk even further knowing that I hadn’t paint-guard it and I am still paying it’s installments, thank you very much you fucking sons of bitches!!!!! Look what you did to my car you stupid fucking piece of shit!!!! It’s not like I got it for free or something! FUCK!

So anyway, as soon as I got to the bank I stepped out of the car to check the damage. Yeah. Not good. There was this long indentation on the right side, about fifty inches long, and there was even a deeper one at the bottom right corner of the driver’s door, so bad the paint was actually scraped off, and the bit where it covered the wheel was also dented so deep and bent outside, and as I was touching it to check the paint and all, the sharp pieces bled my finger. Shit. Then I realized that the little light on the side was also gone. Double shit.

At that stage, I was ready to kill someone. I called my beau to have a good rant and then on my way home, I almost hit another fucking motorbike because this dude, for some fucked-up reason decided to ignored the red light and went ahead to cross the junction. I couldn’t believe these people.

What is up with these motorbike riders?!?!! Why oh why did they choose to cut to the opposite of the road or keep going straight when people were actually indicating to turn? Where they blind?

Seriously. I know my beau also rides one but he was never that nasty! There were rules, for fuck’s sake. Honestly, I wished all those idiots died or something, because they did not deserve to live.

I was all shaky and angry and pissed off and upset that as soon as beau got home he gave me a hug and told me it didn’t matter what happened as long as I was alright.

We both sat in front of the television watching some gruesome gangsta-type movie with Queen Latifah in it and I was engrossed with it for a while but when it was over I got into the depressed-mode all over again.

So beau said, “What can I do to make you feel better?”
I went quiet for a while. Then I piped out, “Let’s go get some chocolates.”

I gotta take care the car and go visit the guys at the insurance company today.

Fuck.