Sighing at dinner.


I’m pretty much screwed right now, but strangely the feeling of exhaustion that usually accompanies the plethora of regret and inner-suffocation is absent. Still, the numbness still resides and weighting the mind and it’s nothing short of awe that I can still manage to type right now.

It’s pretty hard to control myself and shouting “FUCK!” at every single thing I can place my blame on, but I know in the end all I could do is just blame myself. I don’t want to heighten the fucked-up feeling welling in my stomach, and I don’t want to place myself in a swirl of regret and remorse and make the day worse it could’ve gotten.

If you’re wondering what big-ass thing I’ve managed to get my pretty much useless and pathetic arse into, let me first tell you that what started off as a crappy dinner is now unfolding itself into disaster night episode 114. Nothing serious, really, nothing life endangering or horrendous enough for me to empty a bottle of febreeze into my guts with hopes that I’d pass out and lose my ability to think so that everything will become oblivious to me as I am oblivious to them. No. But I’ve screwed up bad enough; bad enough to warrant me a hefty load scolding from dad. God knows how much more I could take, not when dad’s already pissed since dinner.

Dinner today consisted of fried chicken wings (self marinated with those RM1 packets of frying flour), a fish fried and served with garlic soy sauce and a plate of fried Okra (lady finger). I believe it may somehow sound alright, and that it’s what regular household dinner would offer to the everyday family. But trust me when I say this; it SUCKS. The chicken turned our rather tasteless; the fish became some flaky monstrosity with crappy sauce all over it. Only the okra was alright. And as the very feisty eater my dad is, complaints were soon all over the dishes (accompanied by the trademark curses and cusses). “What the fuck fish is this? The chicken taste like shit! Where’s the otak-otak? Tiuniama chew chibet.” What could’ve been a warm, quiet dinner turned out to be a round table engulfed with bad moods and horrible temper that hovers above dishes. Dad lost his appetite. His continuous nagging lost me my appetite. Dad left his half of his plate untouched. I finished everything to cover my guilt. Brother had to take swipe at me. Sigh.

My maid does the cooking, so basically everything my dad was hollering at is indirectly directed at her. What he didn’t know is that every evening the maid would confide to me regarding what should be cooked. Thus, the one who gets all the blame is me. It’s bad enough already to silently take the blame for what my maid did, who went on a long line of excuse that the fish should be cooked instead of the otak-otak that I suggested. It’s hard not to blame it entirely on her. I’m still rather pissed at her, especially when she looks cool about it. But I could’ve insisted, and I could’ve made the dishes well much better. Never mind. It’s not like it never happened before.

So what continued is that I have to take the car, under the soft serene rain, to the nearby restaurant and get dad some noodles, and wait a full 20 minutes for it. It was freaking dark, the most of the streetlights were pretty much out, the car’s headlights had to be dim, and I had to scrape the front bumpers to the side of a signpost while parking. Shit. I checked. A lot of paint is scratched out. A whole damn lot. Nothing I could do to cover my crime, apart from brushing off the paint that got lodged at the signpost. I haven’t told dad. What I could do now is either feign ignorance and pray that dad won’t notice it till he went to work, or tell the whole damn thing and brace the scolding along with the humiliation for scraping the car during the one manoeuvre which I perform without fail every fucking week. Fuck. Another thing is to lie; tell my dad that he has a scrape to the bumper when I lock the doors tonight, and pretend that some rogue, reckless driver had scraped it when the car was parked, then feign ignorance. I’d hate to have the guilt, but now it seemed the best choice of action. Damn it.

God damn this fucking dinner.