You are never too old to learn, They say and the much quoted They is probably right because today I did indeed learn an important cultural lesson. It was not a lesson to do with how to be a better guest here in Malaysia it was much more to do with how I react when people annoy me.
Over the past few months of driving in KL I believe that I have mastered some of the Malaysian road etiquette. I confidently over take on the inside lane and can blend the Lawrence Mobile into most traffic gaps. I have even, once, turned left when the lights have been on red. I still carry out that very old-fashioned and much under-used activity of using my indictors though, so I have not completely assimilated.
Today however I learned something about horn usage. Parked at the tyre air pump in a quiet KL petrol station I consulted the in-car Hyundai Trajet Owner’s Manual for tyre inflation pressures and was about to get out of the car and begin airing-up when the car behind me sounded its horn. Let me slow the immediately following half-second so that I can describe the range of thoughts that went through my head in the order they happened…
1. Punch the horn user on the hooter.
2. Calmly and politely tell the honker that I would not be long and would they mind waiting.
3. Bang on their driver’s door and shout naughty words at them.
4. Slash their tyres…..
… and then I reached an inner calm, took a deep breath and, as the aircon in the Trajet was still running, something better came to mind: Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, a phrase that the mighty and all knowing They approve of. Consequently I double- and treble-checked the inflation pressures and set to work inflating the tyres at the slowest pace possible. The air pump itself was measured in a curious pressure measurement from 200 to 350 somethings which meant that I had to engage in highly complex and time-consuming mental arithmetic to convert to PSI. Clearly I could have used the handy conversions chart displayed but that would have been far too quick. I then applied the nozzle to the valve and soon discovered that the first tyre was perfectly inflated and did not require my attention in anyway. That did not prevent me from giving it a thorough examination, in fact I gave it as thorough an examination as all four tyres. The only thing that prevented me from opening the boot and unloading the spare was when a friend passed by and, well, it would have been rude not to stop and speak for a moment or six.
Tyres inflated I made sure that each dust cap was fastened securely and then set about clambering back into the car, in a controlled and leisurely manner. I slowly reversed out of the parking space, gave a long, hard stare at the hooter and carefully drove out of the petrol station.
I left feeling amazing and learned that a hooted Lawrence is an angry Lawrence and a vengeful Lawrence.