We define and identify ourselves by a combination of our habits, ideas, thoughts, interests, situations, accomplishments, social bonds, material gains, etc. Changes to any of one or more of these elements appears to shift the whole perception of 'I' that one was clinging on to earlier. I bet everyone gets a little philosophical and retrospective when allowed with more free time than a 9 to 6 job permits.
As promised in the previous blog, here is a tale of making amends;
Trouble most certainly follows the paranoidal Shu! During my pleasant stay with Katy Kat, I managed to (accidentally) scratch her floors with a metal rod that stuck out of my travelling bag, break a butter knife while cutting a frozen block of cheese, overfeed her guinea piggy one day and finally spill blue ink over one of their favourite bedsheet sets. With the exception of the butter knife which snapped right before her eyes, all the other confessions came late. Confessions to "crimes" are hard and it does not come easily until arrangements have been brainstormed and made for damage control and lines well rehearsed for the confession itself.
What do you do right after recovering from the initial horror of seeing blue ink that leaked from your ink pen on to a lovely set of sheets, which your hosts were kind enough to trust you with and which also happened to be one of their favourite sets? I, set out immediately to Google rescue methods (what would life's problems be without Google? Ans: definitely bigger) and buy stain removers. Unfortunately, ink stains are stubborn and none of the remedies worked. Panic. Online stores proved hopeless; none of them had a close match. I figured if nothing works out, I'll buy the toddler sheet set with stars and planets from the NASA online space store when Katy has a baby. Panic. It was time to leave Katy's place and the cowardly Shu left quietly, hoping to find a good replacement set soon and come clean right after. Not the best idea, as it turned out because they noticed it before my confession! Luckily, dear Ryuu gave me a good and timely ass-kicking about the way I handled the whole matter and made me realise that the consequences of withholding information can and will lead to unpleasant outcomes. And shortly after, I confessed to a very calm and gentle Katy, who took the bad news quite well. Obviously, I overreacted and panicked about the whole matter and made a mountain out of it so now we laugh about it, but,
While all that was happening and armed with only a name from a faded label, a lead from Katy herself on where she bought it years ago and determination to set things right, I set out on a mission to find it. It was no longer sold at any of the Robinsons stores or the other major departmental stores in Singapore. After striking a random chat with a helpful shop assistant lady, she suggested that I visit the Co'Zy factory outlet store at Jurong IMM. They didn't have it either and the staff didn't know what I was talking about, but they were nice enough to take down details of the design and offer to check with their warehouse. Days passed and finally I received a call saying "Ma'am, you are lucky! We found a set for you in our warehouse. You can come and collect it from us". Whew. That was excellent customer service! I was swept over with relief.
Later, I found this image on the Co'Zy website - which has not been updated since - guess what?? 2009!! I still love that sheet design very much!
All ended well, kinda. Ryuu and Katy are now Facebook friends.
Moral 1 of the story: Honesty is a time-tested policy. Use it!
Moral 2 of the story: Crises can bring people closer to each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment