I’m usually not a superstitious person, and I’m still not. But certain events tend to shake my firm dismissal of this widely accepted belief. Take last Friday for example, the 13th of July. Any such day is infamous for its malevolent foreboding and ill omen. Despite my skepticism, I can’t help but notice my increased string of bad luck befalling me that day. As Murphy once said, “What can go wrong will go wrong.” Is it coincidence that on a Friday the thirteen more of these things ‘happened’ to go wrong?
I reported to camp full of gaiety and optimism, as any normal person who does not have work throughout the weekend will feel on Fridays. We had healthy lifestyle in the first half of the morning, of which I participated with enthusiasm, due to the twin fact that I could do whatever I want and, as I have earlier mentioned, it was a Friday. After an hour of pumping iron followed by another hour of break, I felt deeply satisfied and proceeded to change out of my P.T. kit and into my coveralls. “BOOM!” the sexy beast lying dormant within me erupted with much force. If it had known what awaited it that day, the Sexy Beast would definitely have remained in its meditative state.
The IC then filled us in on the job scope for the day. Basically, there was only one job to be done; make sure that before 5:00pm a certain land rover is in working condition and can be booked out. Since there wasn’t much more to be done, we were all quite sure that it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
First of all, I went under the rover to fix the exhaust pipe. It proved more challenging than I expected due to the confined area allowed me but nevertheless, it was done, and with much finesse too, thanks to the sexy beast. Secondly, there was another part of the pipe that had to be connected from above, which was accomplished rather easily. Then the time came for the installation of the propeller shaft, which proved a problem. There was no propeller shaft. It was not indented, and if it was it hadn’t arrived. My OJE peers and I started to panic, but apparently the other more experienced technicians knew what to do.
“This kind of thing vely easy can fix one. Just take from anudder vehicle and put into this one can oreadi lor!” my IC wisely said in a standard of English that would put Queen Elizabeth to shame.
We carried on as instructed and obviously with much success. Alas, it was at that moment when a series of unfortunate event unfounded. One of the outsourced technicians from Comfort Delgro inspected the undercarriage and proclaimed with certainty that the exhaust pipe was fixed wrongly. We thus had to disconnect and reconnect the bolts and nuts holding the pipe. However, that was not all, for after the second attempt at connecting we found out with much wailing and gnashing of teeth that initially it was not fitted wrongly but that it was supposed to be fixed that way. The clock was ticking, forcing us to quicken our pace.
Topping up the coolant was the next course of action then came that of the power steering fluid. Leaking ensued, duly noticed by a sergeant, who checked the source of the leak. He found out with much horror that the power steering fluid pipe was totally broken, meaning that we had to change it completely. Now comes the problematic part; to take the pipe out, the air filter and the radiator fan cowling assembly had to be removed first. Also, since we did not have a spare, another vehicle would have to be the sacrifice.
Silence.
“Alright, let’s pack up and go home. We’ll continue on Monday,” the sergeant announced.
We obeyed him without any hesitance whatsoever.
The Utterances Of The Sexy Beast: Chapter Two
Randomised at 6:04:00 pm