A parking spot!!!

I was suddenly awoken from my sound sleep with a noise of elephant trumpeting in the room. First I thought it was just my wife who came to bed and was blowing her nose but the sound was different and louder. I got up and realize the noise was coming from my pet dog, Al E Baba.

I had barely slept a few winks before this loud trumpeting noise woke me up. I was awake reading 21 Mortals until after midnight. I looked at my iPhone clock and it was only 2:46am. Al E was blowing and coughing away very loudly and all that came out from his mouth was green sticky gooey phlegm.

I had to try to go back to sleep. I had an early day in the morning with a meeting set by my new staff at 8am. Furthermore, since moving to this new building called U-Village in Cyberjaya, there is not enough parking and those coming late are unlikely to find any street parking whatsoever. I just had my car towed about 3 weeks ago and it was an expensive dent in my wallet when I had to pay the Sepang Council 270 ringgit to get my car out.

It was going to be a busy day, meetings starting at 8am, interview at 10am, time maybe for a quick lunch and then more meetings in the afternoon until 5pm.

But I could not get any sleep now with all the racket and trumpeting from Al E. I am concerned as well. I treat Al E like my fury little son. He sleeps with us in the room but not on our bed, he has his own little basket on the floor.

This is not the first time this has happened. Whenever Al E gets a cold, he will trumpet and cough desperately to try to get the phlegm out and then look at us innocently and apologetically. I see the glint of mischievousness and intelligence in him. After all, he is named after Albert Einstein.

“But why Al E Baba, what is the Baba for?” many people have asked me. Of course it is linked to Ali Baba and the story in The Arabian Nights but what do most people think of when they think of Ba Ba?

Some people get it immediately, like Ba Ba Black Sheep or like a guruji or babaji. Al E is a black cocker spaniel and they do tend to look like little sheep.

So there was Al E, looking at me and my wife apologetically while trumpeting and coughing and blowing heavily from his chest, trying his best to get all the gooey phlegm out and for him to breathe more easily.

For a dog his size, barely 14 kilograms and maybe about two and a half feet in length and 2 feet in height, he sure could make noises like an elephant. I am sure he woke up everyone in the house and perhaps even a few neighbors.

There is not much the wife or I could do to help him except to comfort him and pet him and be with him for the time being. There are no emergency vets open at this hour, and furthermore, it was not that big of an emergency. He has done this before when he was having a cold.

Al E has to some extent been like a Babaji, he is pretty much my first real pet and therefore, just understanding and learning his behaviors has been something new for me. And while all pet owners feel their pets are all very smart, well, I am no different. After all, he is named Al E for Albert Einstein.

After a while, I get on the floor and sleep next to him, just rubbing his chest and he too goes to sleep, maybe for an hour or so. But the hard wooden floor is not something either of us can take for too long, and we are awake again.

Before you know it, my first alarm on the iPhone rings, then the second, and third and finally the fourth time before I finally get up. Usual routine as I sit on the throne and shave my stubbles that have grown over the weekend with my 3 headed Phillips electric shaver. Outside, I hear Al E going about his trumpeting and coughing. After a quick shower, I clean up all his phlegm on the floor and get dressed and rush to the office.

It is later than usual as I rush downstairs to my car. It is already 7:30 and I can only hope to find a parking spot in Cyberjaya. It usually take about thrity minutes on the best day to reach the office from Bangsar Baru, through the Midvalley circles and on to Jalan Cheras and then the Maju Expressway all the way to Cyberjaya. But as I am driving, I can only think of Al E getting well and whether I will get a parking spot.

A parking spot! That’s life. Sometimes we are worried about things that seem so trivial and unimportant. But those are the circumstances; this is the life of a middle aged single income office executive in this world of ever increasing costs.

As I reach Cyberjaya and find a parking spot and put in coins in the electronic parking ticketing machine, I just come to realization that I am becoming like a robot. A parking spot!!!!

Take care and be well.