Twelve Hours on the road

As I was about to doze off for a routine afternoon nap on May 30, 2007, a telephone call at around 2.00 pm interrupted my sleep. It was from my younger daughter EL requesting me to fetch her back from Kuala Lumpur.

I smelt a rat as it was abnormal for her to do that. Under normal circumstances she would not want us to travel to Kuala Lumpur as she does not want us to strain our mind and body to tread the unfamiliar routes in the city. She prefers coming home once a month by bus to visit us.

I knew there was an urgency that compelled her to make such a request. She said she had sprained her right ankle one week ago. I sensed it was serious. Without inquiring further, I immediately woke my sleeping wife to ask her to get ready to go down to Kuala Lumpur to fetch our daughter.

At around 2.30 pm, we left the house. In the car we did not talk much as both of us were worried about our daughter. On the long journey we had to stop at a few rest places for fuel and stay alert with cups of coffee. I had to do all the driving as my wife could only be an ‘attentive navigator’ but not a ‘co-pilot’ as her knee problem has made her lose her confidence to take the wheel.

To keep me alert, I tried to imagine myself as a Formula 1 driver called ‘Michael Shoemaker’, the distant relative of the famed F1 champion, Michael Schumacher. I tried to maintain the car at the speed of 110 km per hour; at times exceeding it hoping to make the trip to Kuala Lumpur in the shortest possible time.

At Tapah rest place we stopped for half an hour to buy some doughnuts and two cups of cappuccino while at the same time allowing the engine of the car to cool down.

My daughter,EL, was never interested in sports during her school days. Surprisingly, after she started working, she took up mountaineering. One year ago, she was instructed by her company to organise a trip to Sabah to climb Mount Kinabalu as their team building project. Of all the fifty participants, she was the only lady together with seven other men who managed to scale the mountain.

As usual, on the morning of May 20, 2007, EL went hiking at a nearby hill. Accidentally, she missed her step as she tried to sidestep a huge protruding root of a tree and she sprained right ankle. She took her injury lightly as her examining doctor reassured her that it was just a minor injury. EL took the doctor’s words as the gospel truth. The following day she went to work as usual. But her ankle became swollen like an elephant‘s leg and the pain intensified as days went by. Her colleagues advised her to come back home to rest and to seek medical treatment. After ten days of bearing the pain by herself, she could conceal the agony no more and informed us.

By the time we reached Subang Jaya it was almost seven o’clock in the evening. As we were not familiar with the direction leading to EL’s place, we had to make repeated telephone calls to her to guide us. Actually, down in my heart I expected her to come out in her car to lead us to her place. I was wondering why she only gave instructions to her mother through phone call. Little did I know, she was seriously injured.

When we were at her doorstep, the instant we saw her hopping with her left leg to open the door we knew that we had to ferry her home immediately for medical treatment.

On our way back to Bukit Mertajam we stopped at Sungai Buloh rest area for Kentucky fried chicken for dinner as we did not want to waste time to eat out in Subang Jaya.

Long hours of driving without anyone taking over the wheel, made me exhausted until I almost could not keep my eyes open. I had to resort to asking my wife to pinch my left ear now and then to keep me alert. When that drastic action did not work I had no choice but to stop near the Sungai Perak petrol kiosk to rest for a while. Luckily, with a mere ten minutes of meditation, I was transformed person with a fresh mind and renewed energy; ready to drive through the remaining journey to reach Alma, Bukit Mertajam at around 1.30 am the following morning.

As if our tough luck was not enough, I was caught driving with an expired license at a road block in front of Taman Impian, Alma, Bukit Mertajam. I was served with a compound for the offence. As a Chinese adage says, “Misfortune never happens once” [祸不单行].

By the time we reached home it was already two o’clock in the morning. Looking back, it baffles me how I managed to drive for twelve hours continuously to make a round trip to Kuala Lumpur and I doubt I shall ever repeat the same feat again.