Bring Back, Take Away, Fetch To and Fro

It seems all my epic stories always start innocently. I've never been the sort to go out on wild drunken parties where people dare each other to do daft things and when something happens people go 'Oh come on I saw that coming!' Instead my weird epic stories (just like fainting on the tube) always happen because I'm incredibly clumsy. So anyway preamble aside, I have yet another silly story to tell, and it all started two days ago.

Jon arrived in Singapore on Saturday night for a 3 day layover, and one of the things he really wanted to do was go to the zoo. I hadn't been to the zoo in close to 10 years, and since they had those new Giant Pandas and adorable Red Pandas (which I've discovered a new love for) I agreed to go with him. The zoo was located in the middle of nowhere, and in order to save money I suggested going there by bus, rather than taking a taxi. 

After a tasty breakfast of Nasi Lemak at Adam Road Hawker Centre, Jon and I hopped onto 171 for a mini tour around Singapore, before getting off around Mandai Lake. Just as we were crossing the road to get to the next bus stop, I espied from afar a familiar red-looking public bus trundling down the road from afar. 

"Oh My God Jon!" I yelled, "That's our bus!" and so with that, both of us started running, while waving frantically at the bus. I ran faster than Jon. All looked well, except I was wearing my shitty pair of black flats, that I had already fallen down in once. As we ran, I kept thinking "Don't fall!" to myself. So, 5 metres away from the bus, just as it stopped to wait for us for a few seconds, I fell. The fall wasn't that bad, except everyone at the bus had seen and I felt embarrassed. On the bus, a tourist lady was talking to her little one and talking about me tripping, and I smiled at both of them to show I was OK.

Only after we were safely on the bus, did I stop to finally take a look at my knee. My left kneecap looked slightly grazed, to which I was relieved. Compared to other accidents I had, this was relatively minor. And then I froze, because I realised the only reason why it was minor was because my fall was onto a patch of grass. I then wondered if my old grass allergy was still alive and kicking within my system. When we got to the zoo, I washed off my knee cap with the tap in the Kangaroo exhibit, and then promptly forgot about it in the excitement of seeing live animals.

Flash forward to the next day, that is, yesterday. It was Jon's last day here, and he wanted to eat Dim Sum before jetting off to bad-Dim-Sum land, Australia. I woke up and discovered a small patch of hives on my left leg. After showering, I showed it to Jon, talking about how it seemed I was still allergic to grass (hadn't had an attack since I was about 15). Then I went off to work for a while, making arrangements to meet him for lunch.

Come one o'clock, I met Jon at ION Orchard to eat lunch at Imperial Treasure, which my Grandma swears by. When the food came, we were both very happy. I even ordered a big plate of veg because we'd been eating unhealthy stuff over the past few days. The ha gao was tasty, prawn chee cheong fun excellent, and we were both enjoying ourself - not really talking because the food was that good. Around the 3/4 mark of the meal, I started to feel a bit funny. My eyes suddenly got insanely itchy and I kept sneezing, to the point that my nose was running and I couldn't breathe. I started complaining to Jon. I made a joke that perhaps terrorists had released poison gas into the air conditioning system and I felt the effects first. 

After paying, I went to the bathroom to blow my nose. It was then I looked at myself in a mirror, and I realised my left eye bag looked like it had been a victim of insect bites. I freaked. I walked out and asked Jon how he hadn't noticed that, and he was like "Oh yeah."At that point, I still couldn't breathe, and decided I had no choice but to call in sick. I brought Jon to Nippon-Ya to buy a small present for my Grandparents, and in the shop there were many mirrors. I kept looking at myself, watch my eye swell to epic proportions. I couldn't breathe through my nose anymore.

We took a cab to the doctor's. In the waiting room, I started to become highly amused at the whole situation. The nurse recognised me, because I had been there so often. I liked how she was totally nonplussed at my eye, but the rest of the patients in the waiting room kept looking at me sneakily. Jon said he even saw one making a face in reaction to the sight of me. For some reason, that just made me more amused because I could now troll people by just being there.

The doctor took one look at me and jabbed me with anti-histamines. Then he made me linger around for a while to monitor my situation as I started to get more and more drowsy. Jon started playing Monsters Ate My Condo on his phone. I played with a interactive BMI poster, it said I was in an OK range. Jon said BMI was bad because it didn't take muscle mass into account. He said by its standards, he was overweight. I noticed that one of the pictures in the other waiting room was a cross-stitch of the Great Wall of China.

After I was given the all-clear by the Doctor, I went to the counter to pay. I overhead the Doctor talking to his Dad on the phone about email accounts, and LOL-ed. His Dad was the family doctor before his son took over, but we hadn't heard from him in years. At the counter, I started doodling on the paper while waiting for the nurses to tote up the bill. I drew one for Jon, and drew the above uploaded picture for myself. My grandma came to pick us up.

I went home, scared my maid, and then went to sleep. My parents came home from work, but by then the swelling had decreased considerably. Still, my mum was freaked out. During dinner we discovered that everything had prawns in it, except for the plain rice and the pork. Even the soup had been boiled with prawns. Later wandering around, I spotted a TV show featuring Prawn Noodles, which I love. OH WELL. I hope this allergic attack was only triggered because of the abundance of histamines in my body as a result of falling in the grass.

So thus ends my epic story. I called in sick today because I woke up and I was still really groggy after a night of sleep. I slept after eating a bit, woke up around 3:30pm, and now I'm feeling drowsy again. I'm looking forward to going back to work tomorrow and being productive.