Cruising ... Jul 29, 2008

You can see here the regular kinda readings on my speedometer ... boredom of long work drives daily have made me have scant regard for speed limits.

This is about 10pm at night along the ELITE highway heading home. No cops are on this road at that hour even if there are they are too busy pulling over lorries - better coffee money to be made am sure.

In the mornings, the needle could go way past 160 *ehehhe*

Now before you think I drive a Ferrari or something, I just own a very mommy mobile ok ... a Kia Rio 1.3A

So you might now be wondering WTF is wrong with this auntie ... like I said this is the result of 200km/day type drives.

And to think up until 2002, I was petrified to drive let alone get myself a drivers license. 6 years on, I have chalked up about in total some 350K kilometers of driving. My baby Charles himself has his odometer read some 217K and then there's driving mom's car, sister's car and for 3 short months when I chalked up 20k km on Jacob's Waja ... haahha GOD! That's a lot of driving for someone who the very thought of sitting behind of the wheel made me break out into panic sweat and get all queasy and faint.

Hahahha reminds me of my very very first time driving home from Tropicana to Seremban very much still in a daze from Jacob's walk-out. My sis was working that weekend and she said take my Kembara and head home on your own .ani.

Sounded easy enough. I mean I'd worked up the nerve to drive from Bukit Antarabangsa to Darby Park (drop sister off) back through Lebuhraya Mahameru via Sprint into Tropicana and same route in the evenings to pick sister up. So hey I knew how to head home from Tropicana via the ELITE.

And this is where false bravado turns into misadventure. 6:30pm I drove out of parking lot down to Damansara exit. I got to the toll took my ticket and then for some unexplainable reason instead of heading left towards Subang (NKVE) I went straight heading towards Sg. Buloh - haahhaha GOD! By the time this great mistake registered in my brain I'd gone left at that fork and the Sg. Buloh R&R was looming ahead of me.

Panic, cold sweat, tummy queasy - you name it I had it. Shits why was I heading north not south. I guess the mind had been wrapped up in the dazed shock to comprehend what I was doing. And one thing I realised is when mind is not clear and panic sets in, the brain is totally incapable of making quick decisions.

Ended up the Kembara kept heading past the R&R. Then I pulled over to the side of the road and had to tell myself to think. This was uncharted territory for me ... had never driven north, only been a passenger heading to Teluk Intan to the inlaws. AARRGHHHHHHHHHHHH and they were the last people I want to be heading towards at that time.

I saw a left to Sg. Buloh - wonderful! another place I'd never entered in my lifetime ... went through the town, past that then infamous supermarket, did a U-turn and started back-tracking ... suddenly I was again at some toll booth but wait this Damansara did not look like the one I'd exited. ALAMAK!

WTF was I now? Huge trailer in front, huge trailer behind and one on either side ... great boxed in and lost. When I remember that evening now, I crack up but back then it was major crisis not knowing where I was and how to get home.

Finally a signboard and the roads looked familiar somewhat from those times as passenger and somehow I managed to in a totally round about way find myself on KL Seremban Highway (Sg. Besi) - YAY I see the light ...

But in those days my 'top speed' would have been a conservative 70km/hr and to make things worse it started to piss down just as I exited Sg. Besi toll. This was all not going my way was it? Oh and by the way it was already close to 8pm (laugh not at me ok - I admit I was real bad then).

So there I was on the left most lane, doing 60km/hr in the pouring rain willing myself not to stop and burst into tears ... well I'd already burst into tears much earlier and still had some running down my cheeks. Not too sure if those were tears about the misadventure drive or just from the fact that in those early days of the separation tears were often there without invite.

Finally after all that misadventures, I arrived at my front gate about 9.30pm ... mind you that must have been the longest ever drive back to Seremban. Everyone in the house had gotten worried, and laughed so much when I finally told them what had transpired.

3 freaking hours - ahahhahaa now I drive from Seremban to Ipoh in less time. All my passengers tend to get in and fall asleep. So with nothing else to do, I cruise along and it means in less than 8 hours, I can drive up to Ipoh, visit and drive home .. what a little confidence can do for you.

Needless to say you have to see my summons outstanding currently ... 6 summons amounting to RM1350 all for speeding heehhe OUCH! Bad girl I am ...

Looking at me, people always make fun and say I am one of those auntie type road hogs *kih kih kih* ... how wrong they are. I might have been one in the early days but after about 3 months of non-stop driving I got bored doing the speed limit ... I love my car and being on the road and I know how Charles is on the road ... so if Charles is unwell, .ani drives more conservatively ... but when Charles is in good health there's just no holding me and my wheels from kicking up dust as we zoom by ...

For a 1.3A he's got pretty good pick-up and once he's rolling he hates those sudden brake situations especially climbing uphill - then he gets a little embarrassed trying to shift gears back into cruising mode ... *sigh* that's because Charles and me are thinking we're big engine cars eheheheh - we can be small but we dream big.

Happy cruising everyone ... I've come a long way from being a petrified driver epitomising the 'aiya lady driver' cliche ... so don't you be messing with Charles and me on the road, give us some respect! :))