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Everyone knows where I’m from. I go on and ON about how much I love the warmth (weather, and people too!) in Malaysia. So, a funny story. I come back on Sunday evening from Malaysia to a really really cold London. I kid you not. I fall asleep at 10pm, all bundled up like a Michelin woman. The heating in my house just does not cut it.
Monday morning, I’m up at 530am because of jetlag but I laze in bed until 7am. I have the hottest of showers. In 20 minutes, I’m all ready to go out and face the cold, cold (it’s so cold you have to say it twice). I reach my car and to my horror, there is a layer of white on my car, very thin, you can still see the glass windows in some parts. I unlock my car to see if I could use anything inside to scrape the ice/snow off. Using a key just would not do. My eyes spot an empty tic tac box. And a t-shirt. (WHO SAYS messy does not come in handy??!). I wrap the tic tac box with the t-shirt and use it as a make shift scraper. Ah it’s helping but not good enough! The white is still there.
I turn my engine on, and blast hot air on the windshield, hoping something would happen. Hot air it is not. Ice-cold air blasts on the ice-cold white windshield. Nevermind, it would take a while to heat up anyway. I should be glad the engine started to begin with. One thing less to worry about.
Three cars away, around the corner is a man with his car. He is using a scraper to move the white. He is also using some kind of spray. Hmmm.
I rummage through the boot and I spy a bottle of Evian in the corner. Ah. Water melts ice, doesn’t it? I pour the water on the windshield, the windows and the back window. Meaning all four window sides of my car. The aforementioned man rushes over as I smile at the white on my car fading into transparency.
What are you doing?! He demands. I blink, unsure of how to respond. Then I do a double take. TO MY HORROR, the ice had formed into a layer of sleet, hardening and now it is a thick, thick wall of ice - may as well have been bullet-proof for all I know.
I look at man, now good, nice, kind, generous man, and plead. Please help me. What do I do?
Good, nice, kind, generous man hands over a spray can and says Go crazy. And I do. I spray like there’s no tomorow, and in front of my eyes, I see the wall break. OMG Like so totally awesome man! I stand there with my t-shirt-wrapped-tic-tac-box-scraper and he with his normal scraper and we make my car okay again.
I can never thank good, nice, kind generous man enough for introducing me to the wonderful voodoo magic of the ‘DE-ICER’.
I did go to school, college then university. I did. And I DO have common sense, I do! In my panic, I just didn’t think. And in retrospect, perhaps I should have gone to get BOILING water. But really, my flat WAS a fair bit away and carrying boiling water around at that time would have been quite a bit of work, so I might not do anything differently if I were given a second chance. But now..NOW.. I have a can of de-icer in my car, with a brand spanking new scraper! Watch out world.
