The Petai Man!

So i did some spring cleaning la, especially my study room cos its a mess and i wanted to revamp the house a little. And the amount of junk i got out of that was AMAZING. Stuff i never used in years, stuff that i didn’t even know existed, stuff that brought memories and smiles, just a wholre treasure trove of junk basically. Hey i just created another oxymoron – “treasure trove of junk”. Man, i’m genius :-)

So anyways, i wanted to just get rid of everything, but not to the dustbin man of course. So i come up with this brain wave of putting everything in my boot and going to the local market and having a kinda jumble sale. Or like those car-boot sales in the UK. Which is what i did. And i told everyone who came to take them all for any price!

And i made about RM90. Thats a full tank of petrol mind you. The highlights of the sale: 1. There was this Chinese lady with a daughter and she was just looking around to see if there was anything interesting. Then her daughter caught sight of a Hello Kitty notepad cum mirror, which i got free from MCDs Happy Meal aeons ago. And her daughter wanted that, so she asked me how much it was and i said, well, gimme whatever you wish. And she give me RM5! Can you imagine? RM5 for something i got free!!!!!! Can you imagine the ROI i got in that one?

So anyways, i was at the market from abt 8. And the crowd is only there from 7-10. After that, there’s just the stragglers. Then this motorbike selling petai comes along at about 9-ish and he parks beside me also la. Then we strike up a conversation about what i’m selling and where he’s from etc. Just a perfectly normal conversation right – about the weather, business, his family, his livelihood etc. I was just doing the listening – its what i do best :-)

Then about 1030, he asks me to try and sell my wares further down the road cos there’d be a crowd there as there are 3 lottery shops in that row. Apparently he’d be there too. So i say i’ll think about it (i didn’t really wanna go, weather was sweltering anyway).

Nearing 11, my mommy calls me and i just tell him that my mom called and that i was leaving. Then he bought 2 items from me, a Polaroid camera and Nokia charger. Also told me that i’d be able to sell petai along with all my junk wares (tho how often i’d have junk to sell is beyond me). Anyways, we exchanged numbers, and that same bloody afternoon, he calls me to ask if i would be interested in selling petai. And i say no, if i do, i would just call him back. Then he calls me back a few minutes later and says that he would like me to follow him to Pantai (which is a jungle-y kampong near Jelebu) to check out the petais from the Orang Asli!

I mean, hellllloooooo?? So i say no, i’m really not interested. And he goes like “are you scared? You don’t have to be scared”. Of course i’m bloody freaked you old fool. Think i’d follow u to some jungle after talking to you for an hour? Sheesh..

In retrospect, i should never have given him my number in the first place la. But if i have undesirable people calling me, i just ignore it. And its worked all these years. And i’ve steadfastly been ignoring him ever since. He’s called me maybe 20 times – he never gives up. Hmmmmm, reminds me of someone else whom i ignored – remind me to blog about that sometime.

Creepy la this world. Makes you wonder why people even have children when they’d have to work so hard just to shelter them from all the crocodiles and wolves around!