Close to Death

Ever had those experiences where you felt close to death?

Well, I have never.

And despite the topic, I still remain experience-less in that area, although on hindsight, I did come rather close to it 2 days ago.

Perhaps not DEATH per say, but a pretty close shave to getting my face scarred by glass shards and breaking my bones in a hundred different places, not to mention getting whiplash injury or perhaps a punctured lung, God forbid.

In fact I am actually quite pissed off.

Not that I waved bye to Death, No... or scarring my beautiful fine skin, but because I got yelled at; MAJORLY yelled at - I think the only other person who has yelled at me like that in the past was my mom - and Rachel Hung does not deal with people yelling at her.

Of course, unless it was a policeman who could very easily have slapped a £60 fine on my wrist.

Wait, wait I digress.

The evening started with my fellow house officers and I rushing to the gym - yes I go to the gym now - for a Body Combat class - yes I do body combat now; WHY? Because there really is nothing much to do after work and I want to look at Kate Moss can or not.

I still enjoyed that pot of Ben & Jerry's though. (Who said one can't become like Kate Moss and still eat B&J's?)

Anyway.

Yes, 3 of us hopped into his BMW 3 1.6 dark blue 3 door car, I buckled up at the passenger seat in front, and off we sped towards the centre of town.

Damn, I'm paying £45/month for use of my gym. If I manage to go twice a week, that's about £6/entry. Wah, back in Uni only £2/entry lor.

So we finally reach the town's mega roundabout with about 10 traffic lights (IN the roundabout) to get to the correct exit that we want. Just as we sped around the traffic light, Dr T decides that his BMW can take the corner in Gear 10.

As we round the corner, our centripetal force swung the car into a smooth curve that looked almost like we could make it to the next traffic light before it turned red.

Of course, being a doctor and not an extra from Tokyo Drift, Dr T forgot to take into account the wet roads and the fact that his BMW is from the 90's and does not have ABS built into his wheels.

He loses control.

The car spins 360 degrees.

And again.

And stops.

I have to commend his driving abilities here though, as the stop was an almighty smooth one. NO screeching of tyres or burning smoke like Hollywood.

But it spun around and around all the same.

I think I only realised that we have lost control once the car had hit 180 degrees.
In fact, I remember just thinking WTF is going on, because we were all so focused on the fact that we were late.

At this point, I think I'll make a damn good surgeon. If an earthquake hits, I can still sew up my patient's bleeding aorta.

Out of the surgeon dream and back to the present.

When the car stopped and when I noticed the other cars coming towards me in the other direction - the first thought that came into my mind was....

'OMG. This is embarrassing.'

No no, not 'Holy smokes, they are going to crash into me!'

Thank goodness for the 10 traffic lights because that meant all the cars had actually stopped before and are going at a rather slow pace so they all braked and watched our embarrassment. Pardon me, MY embarrassment.

I'm not sure if my other two mates were pooping in their pants or not.

Anyway, there we were stopped in the middle of the road, taking up 3 lanes. Of course, the car engine had to give up on us and feed my embarrassment more. I was struggling internally to stop screaming out : JUST F***ING START THE CAR SO WE CAN GET OUT OF HERE! and I am happy to say I muttered a very neutral 'uh oh'. Of course, if it was a closer friend, I would've totally BUTCHERED him.

After the 5th try, the BMW started and we gave a palms up to all the other drivers who probably think we are total NEDS (non educated delinquents) to get ourselves into that pickle - and drove on towards the gym.

To be fair, I was totally cool with the whole episode.
I did not think of it the whole 2 hours I was in the gym - in fact a sip of alcohol could've increased my heart rate more instead of that 360 degree skid.

I came out and we were all a-talk and a-laugh as I slipped into the back seat. Music blared (I don't know why all these young doctors like music pumping out of the car til ear-splitting level) and what can only happen next to make the day worse was that we

got

Flagged

Down

By

The

Police.

WTF.

Today is a BAD day for cars and us 3 doctors.

So the policeman comes by the drivers window, jabs his finger at me (sitting meekly behind) and says to Dr T, 'You the driver, your responsible for her sitting behind. She's not wearing a seatbelt.'

And I laugh with relief - I thought he caught us skidding earlier on ... and in fact, who said laughter is the best medicine?

Stupid Reader's Digest.

Because of my silly laugh of RELIEF, Mr Policeman changed his tone from 'I am not going to fine you because you obviously look like a NED and we don't do NEDs' to : ' YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? YOU F****ING THINK IT IS? YOU COULD KILL YOUR FRIEND IN FRONT OF YOU YOU MORONIC CUBE!!! (as in moron to the power of 3)' and continued onto a whole onslaught of aggressively over the top verbal diarrhoea that was, is and will always be: TOTALLY uncalled for, inclusive of statistics on how many people with no seatbelt actually DIE.

Eh, I can tell you how many people with small cell lung cancer die too ok.

Caught red handed, I did what I did best, try to look sorry (quite difficult as I don't take on the whole yelling at me thing) and injected a few tactful 'I agree, sir, I fully understand' with vigorous nodding at opportune moments to appease this cop's anger on how I could've killed us all (including him and his partner in the police car behind).

The final straw came when threatened - why do I say threatened? - Because he says it as: I can fine you right here, right now.

At which I was ready to pull out all stops, play the foreigner card and pretend I had just overcome puberty.

Ang mohs dig stuff like that.

But he cuts to the chase and echo my exact sentiment: 'Where are you from?'

'Malaysia. Yes sir, we don't do seatbelts in the back seats in my country. I didn't know, I'm really sorry'

And Dr T quickly quips in, 'Yes, I am sorry, she is my responsibility, it's my fault.'

Awww, bless Dr T.

Then, he goes on on his barrage of attacking me again with, 'What if your friend here lose control of his car? It's a wet night, the roads are slippery..'

RIGHT.
You know what they say about irony? This is the perfect example.
Yes he DID lose control of his car, yes the roads are slippery, and yes, because it was slippery, we spun the 360 degrees.
Ironic ei?

Aye.

Of course we keep all our mouths shut and once again turn on the 'we are terribly sorry look'.

At to which he finally says, 'When are you going back home?'

'Early next year'

'Oh.'

'Yes, officer, I am really sorry.'

'Well, since you are going home, there is no point me fining you (because you are just going to throw the fine away)' - he didn't quite say that, but I could hear it rolling off his lips just before he sealed them

'Aw, thanks officer. I'll remember forever now, I will NEVER do it again.'

You know, boot licking crap.

'I'll just give u a warning now.'

'Thanks'
'Thanks'
'Thanks', we chime and sat in stony silence until the policeman walked off back into his car.

Think I was embarrassed earlier on? This seals the entire deal.

At to which Dr M who was in the back seat on the way in to town confesses the popper of them all, 'I was not belted up earlier on either.' And we tooting spun 360 degrees.

Well, well, well.

So we did manage to fill Mr Policeman's whole half cooked story of slippery road-losing control-not belted up to the T.

We are just extremely grateful that they did not ask us what our job was t nor were they there earlier on when we spun out of control.

Because doctors and seat belts and losing control of cars just does not fit into the whole, 'I want to help people that is why I want to do medicine' propaganda.

Nope, not at all.
After all, we are here to save the world.