NOV 27 — There is a special breed of Malaysian whom I think needs their head examined.
For once, I am not making fun of politicians but the regular Malaysian… the kind who parks in front of people’s gates, effectively blocking the driveway.
I work from home and do not drive, but my housemates own a car. So when they are at home, the car is parked inside. But when they are out, I have to keep an eye on the driveway constantly.
My neighbours must find it quite amusing the constant sight of me running outside and yelling, waving off errant drivers who try to park at my gate, as though scaring off crows from my corn field.
The funny thing is that when I chase them off, they get all offended.
“I thought there was no one in the house!” they say, as though it makes it all right.
Look, I get that you have a car. I know that finding parking can be quite annoying.
But driving a car does not give you a license to inconvenience other people.
It is not just blocking driveways, but another group of Malaysians think it is perfectly all right to block off entire residential roads to have house parties.
In the words of the average irate Malaysian, I would just like to say: “Fikir ni jalan bapak kau kah?” (You think this is your father’s road?)
If you need to take up an entire road or lane in your housing area, thus forcing your neighbour to park elsewhere or block them from entering their own driveways entirely, have the decency to at least inform the people who live around you.
Yet, too many people take their neighbours for granted. Consider this nightmare scenario: say in the middle of the night, your family member has a medical emergency and you decide to drive them out.
Alas, a neighbour’s drunken wedding guest left his car in your driveway and the fellow is sleeping off his intoxication in a ditch nowhere near your house.
Is it too much to ask, honestly, to be considerate? To be the kind of neighbour you would want? To not be the annoying git who plays his music too loud/lets his kids steal fruit from the neighbour’s trees/parks his second car outside, blocking his neighbour’s gate?
Sadly I can’t do what my friend did when people kept blocking his driveway. He has automatic gates that open outward, see. So whenever someone blocked his gates (they did it even when cars were parked inside), he would just press the button and well, hello car, meet gate.
Of course angry car owners did give him an earful, but his answer was, “Oh sorry, I didn’t think anyone would be so inconsiderate as to block my driveway so I didn’t look before pressing the button.”
Sadly I think the only solution to my problem will likely be getting a dog. A great big dog that likes peeing on tires. And biting idiot drivers. Or putting up a picture of my face when I wake up in the morning, which is perhaps far scarier. If all else fails, an automatic gate just might provide a constant source of entertainment.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
