Aw, Nuts

Friday was a great day: gorgeously sunny and warm, some things at work that I vocally disagreed with were cancelled, and I had a good gym workout to look forward to afterwards. I left work around 6:45pm and negotiated the crazy Friday evening traffic into the city towards the gym.

On DunHua North Road heading southbound, the car infront of me stopped abruptly. I squeezed the rear brake, and (since it's a practically useless drum brake) it only slowed me down a little: I was still approaching the stopped Citroen C2 quickly. So I emergency braked with the front (disc) brake with a quick grip, and my bike ground to a halt ... only centimeters away from it.

And then from the sudden braking, my bike catapulted me forward and took me off balance, and it toppled over to the right. The result: really minor scratches on the C2's under-bumper area (from my front tire), and a caved-in taxi rear door in the neighbouring lane from my scooter. And more scrapes over the right side of my scooter.

The police came, the other drivers and I moved our vehicles to the side of the road (after the cops did their markings on the road). C2 Lady's friend came by, looked at the damage, and said it's okay and not to worry about it. Taxi Man had a huge attitude problem, but eventually my taxi driver buddy friend was able to convince him to let us take his car to an autobody and pay for it ourselves (instead of just paying him off the $3000 he wanted), and sorted that out the next afternoon.

But here's the clincher: in the topple, I banged my left knee against my own scooter, and the right handlebar jabbed me really hard really close to my cash-n-prizes. I did a self check the next morning and my right testicle is bruised a deep purple / dark red, so I have endearingly named it my betelnut in honour of the red sputum that is so characteristic of the food.

I'm looking for a car now.