Acci-Dental

I have been driving around so frequently and yet in the past so many years, have completely avoided being caught in any accident and this included a couple of near misses of others hitting me. I am a model driver. The highway is a dangerous place and I can't figure out why people when getting into the KPE tunnel has to suddenly switch lane at the point where the roads are on a down slope. Even golfers know that playing down slope can be tricky. In those few occasions of misses, I heard screeching of tyres followed by a few bangs and when I looked from my rear view mirror, I saw the skirmishes behind with me remaining unaffected. People were switching lanes needlessly. They go to the far right lane meant for overtaking only and the moment they got there they slowed down.

Many times I left home early and yet got caught in a jam because of such accidents at the tunnel expressway. This led me to assess that the skills and attitude of our modern day drivers are really quite poor.   Very frequently, you get drivers who refuse to stay in lane even when they were about to make an exit even when at the exit there was a long queue. They would continue to drive as if going straight then when then queue started moving, they will suddenly swerved in when they saw a gap. There were many near collisions as a result and it happened to me once which got me infuriated. At times, these recalcitrant drivers could not cut in cleanly and left their rear end sticking out which immediately endanger not only themselves by others in the outer lane and those vehicles in front and behind them. 

If this goes on and the jam becomes a regular affair it is a matter of time before the authority switched on the ERP gantry. Be smart. Stationing police officers in the tunnel may not be productive as the police have more important things to do. They should put a camera where the exits are and zoom in on such dangerous driving. Skillful drivers can get into lanes smoothly and need not be penalised but watch out for those reckless ones. 

Then on a lazy Sunday afternoon, on the way to Sungei Tenggah, I missed an exit and had to re-loop back to Upper Bukit Timah to get into KJE. There was some construction there where the roads would merge. To my left was a huge bus, my lane was merging and I was the only car ahead and just before the lane merged, I felt a nudge and a jolt to the right rear end and I suspected another car hit me. I turned to look but and saw the only car near me but unfortunately after the lane merged, it diverged into two lanes so that car that hit me just turned away to the right while I was going straight. I could only assess the damage when I got to the destination. Fortunately it wasn't serious. 

All these are nothing compared to my acci"Dental" breakage of a molar. I learned that those old silver fillings, while very useful those days were very hard and over time can affect the tooth. What worked last time may not work as well now. Last year I had my wisdom taken out of me and required stitches. What was supposed to be hopefully a simple removal turned into an hour of trauma when the crown broke. I was aware of this possibility and prayed "God help me", just let it be a normal removal. It was not to be. I continued to open my mouth and felt like I was the KPE tunnel with traffic moving in and out. While others may have three-legged tooth that are rooted straight, mine has a habit of going all in different directions making it more challenging and complex. I felt bad for my dental surgeon but he has a calming effect on me.

Fortunately, I have very good dentists who not only being very well equipped and professional, made me feel very comfortable, assured and confident such that going to the dentist is like going for a picnic. They bossed my oral cavity. They have been providing my family's dental care too. They will even follow up with you to make sure you are alright too a few days later. This made me wonder how do people cope in the old days when you do not have dentists or pain killers. I mean just a tooth extraction can make grown men pee in their pants. How can we guys cope if we became women? Giving birth for example. Won't it be like extracting a giant tooth? I can't be a woman. How do people cope those days when they do not have gynecologists and pain killers? 

So, a few stitches later it turned my one day medical leave into a few days which I dreaded because work will be more traumatic in the coming week and I'll be out of action for some time in all things. No beer, no golf, no gym, running, etc. Boring.

Let's just look at it another way that it is a blessing in disguise. It has become a forced rest. You have an official reason to take this rest. Maybe it is a much needed one. It may have helped avoid a burn out. For the first time in many years, I could wake up in the morning as I pleased and with no expectations for the day. No plans, no schedules, no nothing. On leave from saving the world. A clean break. I get to see my estate in a new light and new time zone. I get to see and smell the afternoon rain. 

That brings me back to the earlier question. Why didn't God just let it be a simple removal? The answer is I do not know. Maybe there is no such concept as God and everything that happens is accidental? Maybe God gave me a good dentist? Steve Jobs sort of abandon religion when he saw children suffering. Children somewhere are still suffering today. Again, I do not have all the answers but there is one thing we can do right? Do something for the children. Have you? I am not sure if Mr. Jobs did anything. Or do we just talk, lament and complain?

Should we abandon our beliefs too when we have a tooth problem, had an accident. Even the old laptop at the office conked out and caused some considerable problems. Worse was to come when my personal laptop, a supposedly reputable and reliable one got its second recurring problem in a year with its graphics card. 


A frustrating couple of weeks but these are ant bites if we were to look around us and find Bangkok inundated with severe flood.  Maybe I deserved a much needed enforced rest and break. Maybe worse things might happen if I didn't had that surgery. It also reinforced my belief about my own mortality. Whatever happened, happens even to the best and happened for a reason. The earth is rotating and revolving. 

At one place it is morning, at another it is night. Front can become back and vice versa as the earth moves slowly. Time and space has its effect on Men, depending where you are living and the environment. As the earth moves slowly, the pace of mankind is incessant in the Internet age and time gets continuously compressed. What happens when things get compressed? You start behaving like a golf ball when hit, compressed and ricochets in a rapture and gets into trouble when the direction is wrong. Slow down the back swing, slow down in life to re-calibrate for direction and accuracy. 

Looking back, the car has only some slight scratches (just thinking of the current COE price at $75k makes you feel grateful) , the troubled tooth is out, I had a good rest and I will be back!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgPePk3kGZk


Hasta La Vista Baby! 
Translated from Spanish it means "See You Later, Baby!