The Wilful Sunflower

One of the worst things about being single and unattached is eating alone. And I don't mean it in the sense of loneliness, either.

This was brought home to me one night last week when I went out for dinner. Alone. (I eat out all the time because there are no cooking facilities in the house where I'm staying.)

It is a Malaysian phenomenon to have what we call "hawker centres", a place with lots of food stalls. Each stall specialises in a certain kind of food - one will sell chicken rice, another will sell fish ball mee, a third will sell curry noodles - you get the idea. You order your food, tell them roughly where you are seated (in some cases, the tables have numbers for easier identification) and go sit down. The food is pay-upon-delivery.

Most of the time, the tables are placed at the roadside, taking up car park slots. Sometimes, they're on an open ground designated for the hawker centre. Very rarely, they are in a huge building with a roof.

I know, I'm getting to the point. Bear with me. :)

So I went to one of those open-air hawker centres - they're perfect when you can't decide what to eat. You just walk around, perusing each stall, and see what catches your fancy. I ordered, then I sat down.

And it began to drizzle. Waiters rushed to set up huge umbrellas over each individual table.

I had an umbrella in my car. I wanted to go get it. But what if my food were to arrive when I was gone? I wouldn't be there to pay for it. And when I got back, what if someone else had taken my table in the meantime? How would the guy know where to deliver my food to? I was stuck in this huge dilemma. (Well, it was huge to me!)

Now, if there'd been someone with me, I could have passed them some money and said, "When my food gets here, can you pay on my behalf? I just need to nip to my car and get my umbrella." They could've stayed, thereby keeping the table "booked", and I would have avoided getting wet. Unfortunately, there was no one with me!

I decided to stay put. Thank God the rain didn't get any heavier. I did get slightly sprinkled, but nothing too bad.

Then, two nights ago, I was at another hawker centre. This time I had my umbrella with me coz I'd already felt a few stray drops. I ordered my food and took a seat.

Then I remembered I'd left my mobile phone on my car's dashboard.

And it WOULDN'T be safe to leave it there. I didn't relish my car window getting smashed, and my $630 almost-new phone getting stolen!

So I rushed to the car, leaving my umbrella on the stool at my table. I was parked pretty nearby - it couldn't have taken me 5 minutes to get to the car and back.

Long enough for my umbrella to disappear, however!

But I'd rather lose an umbrella than my phone and a car window. No contest, man. Still, it's a bit frustrating.

I must stop eating dinner alone when I go to hawker centres...