sperm and eggs

So today I drove out in search of food. I bumped into my cousin 1 year ago at a roti prata joint, and I knew it had been taken over, so I decided to go to the same place, to keep with tradition as to where to get my first post sports day dinner of the year.

I took my father's car, the one that I had seriously damaged over the last year. I drove to that ex- roti prata joint, not very far away, and then I tried parallel parking. Well I was better at it this time and didn't have to take 5 minutes. Which was a relief. But I had just gotten that car out from the workshop less than 2 weeks ago and I was really really afraid of damaging the paintwork, so I went around to inspect the car. And that was when I saw this huge dent, right over where I had placed another dent 6 months ago because I backed into a white pillar that I didn't see because it was white on white. And I saw a lamp post nearby and assumed that I had backed into a lamp post.

My heart sank. I thought, well then, this could be the last time I would be allowed to touch the car.

Then I thought, hold on, this isn't right. First, I had made exactly the same dent before. And I knew that for a dent that size to be created, I would have felt the impact from inside the car. Then that lamp post was too near to the neighbouring car, and it would have been quite impossible to hit the lamp post without hitting that car. (And to make sure, I got back into the car, and drove it right up to the neighbouring car to see whether I could possibly have hit the lamp post. It seemed really improbable.)

I thought, well, my mother was being careless, I guess. So I called up my home, and found out from my father that he was the careless one, he had hit a bollard. So I was relieved that it wasn't me, although very annoyed that we had left the dent there for 6 months while I was allowed to make all my budding mistakes that I needed to make with a car, and before the car is out of the workshop for 2 weeks he makes another big dent. When I saw that dent for the first time I thought that somebody was screwing around with my head.

Then I got really scared, because there you have it, conclusive proof that your father's getting old. He's around 60 years old and yet he's living the life of a young crusader ridding the world of injustice. (This is not far from the truth actually.)

Yes, he drives a lot more than me and is therefore more prone to accidents than I am. I choose to drive when there's little traffic as heavy traffic makes me nervous. Even driving to Orchard Rd and back which is like a distance of less than 5 MRT stops, it also makes me nervous. But he has always been a careful driver and I can count on 1 hand the number of accidents he's been in.

I think of 1 year when he had 2 major accidents - he crashed the car, and then he crashed the workshop's car as well. That was crazy. But he was under a lot of stress. It was the Pan Electric recession and he was some senior finance executive in a SME and didn't really know whether his company was still going to be solvent in 3 months' time, whether or not the bank was going to recall the debt. (Luckily he was able to help pull out of the mess.) I remembered years afterwards that he spoke to my grandmother in Cantonese a lot during this time and it was probably to hide things away from me and my sis. (We don't understand Cantonese.)

So when my father gets into 2 accidents in quick succession I get worried because I treat this as a sign of stress. Incidentally those accidents both took place at Paterson Road near where Borders would open shop 12 years later. Actually the other one was down the road at Scotts Road. Well you know those are dangerous places and I get nervous driving around there, and you know why there are always double zig zag lines around there.

Remember how Stanley Kubrick died just after completing "Eyes Wide Shut"? It's very much like old people to deteriorate a little when they think that things are all right and they're letting their guard down. I don't know, is he thinking, "oh the kid is growing into real adulthood so I can let my guard down now"? I don't know what to think. Yes, in your 20s you are in adulthood, but maybe it is fake adulthood, like you assume duties but people allow you to fuck up. 30s is real adulthood where your balls are really on the line. Like spring is over and it's the beginning of a long hot summer.

This is the same father who taught me how to ride a bicycle, how to swim (actually how to hold my head under the water, since he doesn't really know how to swim properly), how to bathe. He didn't push me to study, since that was my mother's job although he did deliver that final kick in the ass I needed in order for my "A"s to be of a fairly decent standard. He didn't teach me how to shave because he uses an electric shaver whereas I like rotating between electric and razor. (Razor is cleaner but electric is easier on the skin.) I had to learn myself - didn't realise until I was 25 that if you don't wet your face before you put on the shaving cream it doesn't work properly - fancy that! He didn't teach me how to get over heartbreak because he never experienced the end of a romantic relationship - my mother is his first girlfriend. This I had to learn through exchanging notes with my sister. I expect that I will learn at least 1 more important skill from him - how to maintain a portfolio.

And now it's my turn to hold his hand while using Microsoft Office because he's really dim when it comes to computers. But there is really still a lot more I can learn from him of course. Thing is, the day when he will rely on me as much as I do on him is getting closer and closer all the time.

Is a person's vitality like egg or is it like sperm? Do you have a fixed endowment of energy which you can use up when you're young, or when you're old, but if you use too much of it when you're young, you won't have much left over for old age? (This is egg). Or if you're a really capable person you're that way and you have that extra vitality throughout your life? (ie like sperm). There are old men who run marathons but they are precisely the people who never did running when they were young.

I am not my father's eldest son. He was already a father to his younger siblings, in a way. He was that sort of an elder brother. The most I can say is that I'm his second youngest kid.