BE PREPARED

"Be Prepared"...sounds like some Boy Scout or Girl Guide motto isn't it?

I would just like to share something very trivial that happened to me last Sunday (16.11.2008).

Well...like every normal Sunday mornings, my family and my friends will have breakfast together after our early morning church service. We will rotate among the places to go, and for this particular Sunday, we ended up at Tai Tong Restaurant (Cintra Street) for dim sum.

After breakfast, we took a walk through the busy Chowrasta / Kuala Kangsar Road street market. Not so much to shop really... but to enjoy the din and bustle of the place.

After that, as we started to drive home, the missus suddenly had this bright idea to visit one of her ex colleague who had just recently gave birth to a baby boy and her house is somewhere in inner George Town.

So what's the problem then? Being socially-correct Chinese, we feel that an "ang pow" for the little fella is the right thing to do. You know..for "soon soon gau tua han" (growing up healthily) best wishes. But alas! we do not have a single empty "ang pow" envelope around us to do the needful.

There was none in the car glove compartment, car booth, wife's handbag etc,,,So how ah?

"Have money will travel" survival instinct kicked in. We will go and buy some. We tried a few newspapers stands / stalls but were unsucessful. Finally we bought these precious "ang pow" envelopes at "Young Ones" Stationery Shop (Burmah Road), i.e. after spending about half and hour and half a tank of petrol looking for these "precious commodity"!

The moral of my story is that it will be a good idea to have some "ang pow" packets stash somewhere in your car, handbags, working bags, office drawers etc...because you will never know when you will need them. And borrowing from America Express Card tagline "Don't leave home without it"!!