Red tape

Huh... Okay, here's an insight on the inner workings of the mind of a typical UiTM guard.

I'm pulling into the faculty in order to submit Zurin's thesis (my wife, for those of you who don't know. Who reads this blog anyways?) and I'm stopped by the guard. I don't have a car sticker, since I don't park inside, it's closer to walk to class from the outside public parking lot, as opposed to the parking lots prepped for students inside the compound itself. That particular logic continues to escape me, but fact of the matter remains that I don't have a sticker.

So I tell the guard who stopped me that I'm just dropping off a thesis at a lecturer's office (pretty far away from the gates, and I'm just dropping the damn thing off anyways, so it doesn't make sense to waste 15-20 minutes parking outside walking inside, walking back outside and driving off) so could I please just be let in for a bit.

He asks if I'm a student. Well, now that you mentioned it, yes, I am a student, which would be why I'm dropping off a thesis, you numbskull, normal citizens have better things to do on their daily routine than go to a faculty in Shah Alam and drop off thesises (thesese? thesesesisis? what's the plural for it anyways?).

He asks to see my card, I show him it, at which point he comments that I don't have a sticker. Regular Einstein. Yes, I don't have a sticker (which is why I'm being pulled over). Why don't I have a sticker, he asks. Why, because I usually park outside, and today I'm just delivering a thesis, so could I please be let through. You should get a sticker, he says. I tell him, well, that really wouldn't be advisable at this point in time, since I'm in my final semester, and I wouldn't need it after this.

He tells me, this is why you need a sticker, because you want to go into the faculty. I wonder at this point which part of I'm just delivering a thesis that he didn't get, and decide it was probably the entire thing. I sigh and reiterate that I'm just hopping in to send a thesis.

He tells me you should have a sticker, at which point I realize belatedly that adhesives might have been a childhood obsession of his. I give up trying to make a point and resign myself to the fact that maybe I should have just parked outside. He nods, proud of the point he's made and tells me that I should go and apply for a sticker, since I want to come into the faculty with the car, and he'll remember my car and its stickerlessness, and I'd better have a sticker the next time I want to come in. He'll let me through this one time. Which was all I was frigging asking for in the first place.

I sigh, nod, and tell him I will definitely get a sticker for my car (although it's so obviously redundant since I won't be coming back here as a student anymore, so there really is no point in having a sticker since I'd have to register as an outsider anyways), however I believe he may have missed the subtle sarcasm in my voice, as well as the clockwise rotation of my eyes, due to my distracting thumbs up, coupled with a nod and a tight smile.

I bet he's probably gonna boast about that incident to his friends over lunch. "You know that green car? Oh yeah, I made sure it's gonna have a sticker. That's right. Me. Oh yeah. I went there. Who's the man?"

Simply amazing.





EpoL