Fuel me once, fool me twice

Today I had to solve a moral dilemma and it was really hard to choose. You see there is a particular service station which will remain unnamed that I like to go to to fill up my gas tank. My inspiration was that they always were helpful and friendly and gave good service. From my regular visits I started talking to one of the girls working there and we struck up a pretty good friendship. She loved old talk and I love to old talk.

The other day she told me something really strange. She said that when I wanted to buy any fuel treatments or injector cleaner to come to her and not go to anyone else. She didn't tell me why, but I figured something was up. Eventually after I pressured her she gave me the story. Apparently, every time I bought a treatment, some of the other workers would take an empty bottle, pretend it was full and stick it in my tank as if it was a full bottle. She also made me promise not to let them know that she told me about it. Let me tell you I was angry. I mean I trusted these people. I thought I was getting good service, but what I was getting was set up. The thing is I hadn't seen it for myself. But it did occur to me that one of the guys especially, would actually bring a bottle and remind me it was time for a treatment. Before he "threw" it into my tank he would try to send me over to talk to my friend. I didn't think anything of it until I heard of the scam and put two and two together.

Today I thought I would find out for sure. I pulled up to the gas station, and sure enough, the trickster was there with his "bottle" of injector cleaner. He asked if I wanted treatment and I said yes. True to form he tried to send me over to talk to the girl, but this time I didn't move. I looked at his hands all the time. I saw him open the bottle and I saw that the seal had been punctured already. I saw him try to stick the bottle in quickly, but he wasn't fast enough for me. I called his bluff and he got bazodee, insisting that the bottle was full. I pulled it out and shook it... Empty bottle. Not a drip. You know, he was still insisting that the thing was full and "gallantly" offered to put in another one just because I didn't believe him. But he knew he was busted. This time, he went for the real stuff and I stood right there lookng at him as he emptied it. I told him how nasty he was, and he didn't like that.

When I left though, he went after my friend, because he knew that she was the only one that would make me wise to the scam. She was mad with me, after, because she said they would victimise her now. She said I should have just done what she said and come to her to buy the treatments.

Here is the moral dilemma. I am not the only victim of this scam. Apparently it's almost like a code of practice at that place. Isn't it my moral responsibility to expose the tricksters? The thing is, if I do that, I could be exposing my friend to victimisation, and possible violence. So what is the right thing to do? I really was in a bind, and she was on the verge of tears, begging me not to tell, so I promised her that I wouldn't blow the lid. But let me tell you I don't feel good about that at all. I feel like I'm not doing the right thing by letting other hard-working people get scammed. But I also don't want anything to happen to my friend because she's a nice girl. This one is really hard for me to figure out. What's the right thing to do?

This thing called life

One again death has dared touch those associated with me. Easter weekend I heard of the accident that claimed the life of two men who were returning from looking at drag racing. I heard the report that one of them was a coconut vendor at the Mon Repos Roundabout, and I briefly thought of my friend but dismissed the suggestion. You see my coconut vendor was one of the nicest people in the world. And people like that are not supposed to die. Every Sunday I would go to him not just to get a couple of cold nuts, but also a healthy serving of belly-laugh and old talk. My coconut vendor was a born comedian, a happy soul. People like that are not supposed to die. After the old talk and comedy he would usually me a discount on the coconuts and often he would even give me some free nuts to take home. He was a generous guy, and people like that are not supposed to die.
But die he did at 5.30 am on Easter Sunday morning. The car he was in hit something on the highway and flipped over and that was the end of those special moments. Just two weeks before we were laughing and joking and I never thought that it would be the last time I would ever see him.
But that's the thing about life.. no matter what, one day we're all going to leave this earth one way or another. The important thing is to always tell those you love that you care for them because you may never get another chance. You've also got to make sure you live life in such a way as to be prepared for the afterlife.

Puff, Puff, Pass De Money

Allyuh, dis is a true story eh. Ah not lyin. Ah did always wonder why it is a smoker go quicker give yuh a cigarette than give you ah dollar to buy de same cigarette. For example meh friend Sexy Girl. Sexy Girl always giving away cigarette to everybody who want. Like she living Mount D'Or, de amount of cigarette she does have. She does move like she own de tobacco company.
De odder day I try someting. I ask Sexy Girl for a dollar borrow. "Not at all," she tell meh. "I ent have no dollar to spare." So I try anodder angle. "Gimme a cigarette den," I ask she. "I woulda give yuh one, but yuh doh smoke," she tell meh. Eh heh. True.
I decide to get to the root of de mystery. I ask she why it is she quicker gimme a cigarette than gimme a dollar when is de same dollar for de cigarette. Hear she: " Well I not stupid, I could use de dollar to buy annoder cigarette!"
Talk done.

Oh my God!

One thing that jumped out at me in the aftermath of the massacre at Virginia Tech in the US yesterday, is the amount of people that started to pray. Everybody was praying for loved ones, for victims, for families. Even in the memorial service today everybody was talking about God and trusting in Him. The funny thing is, this is the same America that is trying to get rid of God and spiritual values. Now when there is a tragedy, everyone wants God to comfort them, Now everyone wants Him. Well I say what about having God around some more. Maybe then we wouldn't see so many tragedies like these. Just my two cents.

Stumped!

So the Windies have flunked out of the Cricket World Cup and I might be the only West Indian male who does not even care. Seriously, I find cricket rather boring. I do support the Windies when they are playing, though and the CWC was no different. I even actually looked at the entire match against South Africa. Now I can't profess to be a cricket expert, seeing as I'm not a fan of the game. but something struck me yesterday while I was looking at it. The score was 36 for 2 with the Windies needing 357 runs to win. Now in a situation like this, the captain of a team would be worried. He could not be happy about the situation at all. But at this point, the camera caught captain Mr Brian Lara laughing and chatting away as if he really didn't care if he was winning or losing. At least that's how it looked on camera. Only when he realised the camera was on him (and it was for a long while) did he put on his serious face. Add to that the talk that Lara and other members of the team were seen feteing the night away in clubs on the nights before the Windies games and you can tell that obviously the players aren't really serious. But why should they be serious anyway? Win lose or draw they get big salaries, cushy sponsorship deals and the supporters will pack out the stadium to support every time. Why bother to work hard if you getting pay anyway? That's only sense. The players are just using common sense, working smart and not hard.Suppose we here in the Windies were like the Pakistanis.. when they lost, the people burned the team in effigy and I think the players were actually afraid for their lives. I don't think that's the way to go, but the fact is that there is no accountability from the players for their poor performance. Even "lowly" Bangladesh did better than us.I'm not a cricket fan like I said, but I'm a West Indian and I think that something needs to be done to stop the embarrassment.

Beam Me Up. Scotty

This last week has been real pressure. I just realised that exams are around the corner and I have a ton of labs and projects to hand in. I also think I don't know half as much as I should, especially in the Digital Electronics class. Added to that, I have been having some strange dreams lately. Last night I dreamt that my house was on fire, then it turned out that my house was actually an island in South Africa. Then the whole island became part of Trinidad again. A couple of nights ago I dreamt that aliens were trying to abduct me and I had to hide all over Trinidad. This one has been a recurring dream since i was a kid. The strange thing about this time.. after the dream, I woke up with my glasses on. I NEVER go to sleep with my specs on so how did they get on my face? That freaked me out let me tell you. I still can't explain it. Maybe I sleepwalked and put them on. Or maybe it was more than a dream. I think I need to stop working so hard though. It's taking a toll on my mind it seems. I need to catch up tho.. Two weeks till exams and I still have 8 labs and 4 projects to hand in. This is going be a long week.

God on the Line

Once again I've found something that annoys me, but I think this one is undoubtedly justified. At my church there are signs posted all over "Please switch off cellphones during service." Now the very fact that a church would actually need to post these signs is disturbing in itself, considering the whole issue of respect and so on. What's even more disturbing, though is the fact that people see these signs, sit next to them and still ignore them. This morning for example, during the prayer time at church, someone's phone decided to go off, and it was LOUD. (I think that the default Nokia ringtone is the most annoying ringtone ever invented.) The person to whom the phone belonged, apparently out of pure embarrassment, decided to disown the poor phone which kept ringing away, calling for its owner.

What I want to know is, though, why does someone not know that a churchgoing person is actually IN church on a Sunday morning? If they knew the person was in church I'm sure they would not call. So clearly whoever is calling said churchgoing person doesn't know that they actually go to church on Sunday. That's the most disturbing thing of all. I think maybe some folks might need a call from God himself.