Misadventures in KL Land

Fellow Toastmasters and guests, good evening.

I love to travel.

I have often fantasized of being sent out on a foreign business trip by a prestigious multinational company. This dream became a reality in September 2007, a week after I joined the technology team in a multinational bank. During that time, they were in the midst of a system implementation project in Kuala Lumpur and so I was deployed to help out.

Since it was my first time to travel for official business and alone in a country that I’ve never been to for 3 long weeks, I had my jitters. I didn’t know what to expect so, I over-prepared. A few weeks before the trip, I bought a brand new luggage, an entire wardrobe of new corporate attire from blouses, slacks, skirts, down to the shoes. I also brought along my “baon” consisting of half a dozen cups of instant noodles, packs of instant 3-in-1 drinks, chips and crackers. Of course, with the help of my mom. It was like I was going on a camping trip.

All my bags were packed and I was ready to go. On the Sunday of my departure, my flight got delayed by two hours and upon arriving at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 10pm, I tried to follow my boss’ instructions to locate the airport limo counter after Immigration. But nowhere could I find it. So I just followed my instincts and proceeded in the general direction of where most passengers were headed until I saw a long queue for coupon taxi service. After an hour, I was able to board a budget taxi. It’s not exactly the limo service that my boss had described and definitely no porter service but who cares! I was tired and I wanted to settle down. Off we went and when I finally saw the brightly illuminated Petronas Twin Towers come into view, I knew I was almost home because I was told that the office building and the service apartment were just in the vicinity.

The work days quickly passed by and when the weekends came, I put on my “domestic” hat and attended to some household chores. And that was when a string of exciting misadventures had happened.

One Saturday, I was packing the contents of my luggage and suddenly, I couldn’t open the combination lock. I distinctly remembered setting it as 525 because it’s the birthday of my dad. Could I have changed the combination by accident? I tried several attempts but to no avail. I even tried the factory default setting of 000 but it just won’t work. I broke into a cold sweat. What should I do? It’s my brand new Voyager luggage, and I bought it for like 2000 bucks. Should I pry open the lock? How? Or maybe cut a slit on the side of the luggage? Uggh, that would be ugly. In the end, I told myself to calm down. Think Marilyn! Think hard! Alas, ting! A brilliant idea came to mind. My college Statistics lessons on probability came in handy. Since there are only 3 digits in the combination lock, then that means there are only 999 ways to open the lock. Since it was a weekend, I had some extra time. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the luggage against my lap and patiently tried out each combination starting from 001, 002 and so on. Finally at 120-something, I heard “click!” I was so relieved! I need not try out the remaining 800-something combinations anymore. And best of all, I get to preserve the brand new state of my Voyager luggage. Yehey! ☺

But that wasn’t the last of my lockout experience. One late evening, I ordered room service for dinner. The next morning, I carefully put the dishes and utensils onto the tray and placed it outside the room by the door. Because I wanted to make sure that everything is in order, I stepped too far out from the door and forgot to jam one foot to keep the door ajar. Thus, the door shut close and I was locked out from my own room. I said to myself “Oh no, not again!!!” I left my keycard inside! I felt like laughing and crying at the same time. It’s as if I was on an episode of “Wow Mali!”. Good thing wearing sheer nightgowns wasn’t part of my sleeping gear. I was wearing my good ol’ reliable T-shirt, jogging pants and slippers so I simply went down the elevator and calmly explained my predicament to the reception lady at the lobby. She was kind enough to escort me all the way up to my room at the 16th floor. From then on, I swore to never to get locked out again.

There was another unforgettable blooper that I made while doing another domestic stint. Part of business travel practice is to do laundry for our inner garments and house clothes via the apartment’s self-service laundrette.

One afternoon, I piled all my used clothes into the big plastic laundry basket, prepared some small bills and brought my own Tide washing machine-ready detergent powder and off I went to the elevator, excitedly pushing the 4th floor button. When I reached the self-service laundry room, I saw rows of washing machine units to my right and dryers stacked on top of each other to my left. One requires 4 MYR coins to operate the machines and so I had to approach the cashier at the convenience store located on the same floor for loose change.

I took the opportunity to ask the cashier lady to teach me how to operate the washing machine. There were instructions in English but then I wanted to make sure. So I survived the washing part, which lasted for 40 minutes. Now comes the drying part. This time, I thought I’d figure it out on my own. I loaded my still-wet clothes on the top dryer and loaded coins onto the coin slot in the middle section, turned the knob and pressed the start button. To my surprise, the top dryer didn’t run and instead, the bottom dryer unit which was empty started moving. I hurriedly went to the cashier lady and asked how to make it stop. She shook her head and said I would have to wait for it to stop on its own and that’s like another 40 minutes. I felt like I just lost a game. Good bye 4 ringgits! But I wasn’t about to let it happen just like that. So I opened the bottom dryer door and viola, the machine halted for a moment. I quickly transferred the contents from the top dryer to the bottom dryer. Upon closing the door, the machine resumed its process. I congratulated myself for thinking on my feet. I got away with it!

A few weeks later, I had another tumble drying stint. This time, I’ve already made a mental note to load the coins on the opposite side of the slot which I did so but then for some reason, I placed my wet clothes on the bottom dryer unit. So, when I pressed the start button, it activated the top dryer unit with the already dried clothes of somebody else. I was tempted to switch my contents with the other person’s but I can just imagine the puzzled look on that person’s face upon seeing that his clothes have magically been moved to another unit. So, I just left things as is and decided I’m going to grant that stranger another round of drying service for free. And I proceeded to load the correct dryer unit with coins. Talk about being smart. Maybe I was just under a lot of stress at work back then. Again, I got to laugh at myself.

So from experiencing a series of lockouts from my luggage to my apartment room, to loading the coins on the wrong dryer twice, these are just some of the misadventures I had while I was in KL land. I can still recall what my engineering professor in college would always say just right before our exam, “You may look up for inspiration, or look down in desperation, but you may not look to your sides in search for an answer.” During those blooper moments, I would just shake my head in momentary frustration and give a hearty laugh afterwards. After all, they say that laugher is the best medicine.

So, when was the last time you had a good laugh on yourself?

Toastmaster of the Evening, fellow toastmasters and guests. Good evening.

-taken from my Basic Speech Project #5-