An Hour a Friend

Strange thing happened today. I think I made a friend. It was the most unexpected way and I am still unsure what was really said, but it is a story... and a good one! Let me tell you what it was and you can see for yourself if it is odd.

Our air conditioner started leaking in the middle of the night between Monday and Tuesday. I wrote a post about it, Dripping in the Dark, and on Tuesday John tried to get in contact with out agent and landlord. Since we order cleaning service every third month, we should not pay for the repair cost. This is what John tried to clear up with the landlord, because the landlord is supposed to pay for it. He answered on some messages, but then disappeared and stopped responding. Without any clear idea of what to do, we order repair on Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday I said I could not go to The Cat Museum because of the repair. They were scheduled to arrive at three thirty, but an hour later they had yet to show up. That was when John messaged me saying that one of the repair men had fallen ill during the day and could not make it. We rescheduled to Friday.

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Friday comes and I have a lot do to and places to be. First of all, it is Steve's birthday. Second of all, it has been raining all day. John really wanted me to meet him at Holland Village for lunch so he could buy craft beer for his boyfriend. They are both coming over later tonight to celebrate. I leave the safe and dry home at twelve, running through the storm with a small umbrella that does little to shield me. When I arrive at the station a couple of minutes later, I am soaked from waist down. There storm is by Holland Village as well, but John was clueless of it until he arrived. As it is in many countries, it can rain fiercely in one part of town and be sunny in another. We ate at Sanpoutei Ramen, eating until we were bursting, but it was incredibly delicious! Then, in the less crazy rain, we hurried over to the next building and went to Thirsty Beer Shop.

We enjoy that shop. A man and a woman works there, both pretty chatty. So of course, once John arrives, I stand in a corner being silent while they barely breathe before jumping form one sentence to another. There is apparently a lot to say about beer. Eventually he managed to find a bunch of bottles he wants and I got two ciders for myself before we left. At the MRT station we split, me taking the two heavy plastic bags home.

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Still soaked I get home, I wash up and I wait. An hour later the repair team arrived. Two Malaysian men. One is supposed to fix the unit, the other cleans the parts in the shower. One of them is friendly the other is rather rude. As they start repairing I ask questions, show interest, wants to know what went wrong and so on. Apparently very unusual since the repair man is laughing and finds my interest joyful. The cleaning man is only speaking in Malay so I would not understand. The friendly man, which whom I have been chatting with, asks me if I know their language. Of course I do not, but I understood well enough to know they were talking about me.

The problem with the air condition was that it was dirty, water-pipe was clogged and it leaked over. They had to remove the whole unit from the wall and clean everything, even the big fan thing out on its own balcony. When the unit was ready to be put up on the wall, I smell smoke. I hate smoke. I grew up with a smoking father and I absolutely can not stand it. So I can very quickly identify when someone is smoking nearby, even though I can not see the person. I go the the bathroom window, find the rude man standing out there smoking. He shows no respect that this is my home, he can smoke once he has left. He is working, for **** sake! I tell on him to the friendly man who goes to shout at him and closes the window.

When they finished the work the rude man was packing up their equipment and moved everything outside the door. The friendly man wrote a receipt, had me sign it under Very Good performance - though I joked about putting it under Very Bad because the workers never give the choice and always point towards their preferred review. Before leaving the man asks under his breath if we are friends and I could not hear what he said. Then he seems unsure and shy, discards me when I ask him to repeat himself. Finally I say that we can be friends and he decided to leave me his phone number. It was very strange. I never got his name out of him, but he put it on the paper. Not sure if I should ask if he wants to have a beer with John and myself some day.