The new year has barely started and I already did one of the craziest things I've ever done in my life.
Drive a van.
It might seem like diddly-squat to you, until I mention that I have not driven a manual vehicle since I passed my test. Four years ago. And that a van is no car. It has a clutch that kicks like a horse, and it is very much longer and larger than a car to boot.
It all started with a phone call from a friend who needed a driver and really urgently. When I told her "no shit you can't be serious," all she said was "you are the only one with a class 3 and not 3A license."
Some part of my brain went click this is your chance to prove what a true daredevil you are. Come on - Just do it. I think somewhere in the background of that decision the soundtrack from Jackass 3D was playing, and I had momentary visions of me ramming the van through the roads like what I do in GTA IV. It's my grandfather's road suckers!
And that was it. Now on hindsight, it feels strange. There is this what the shit were you thinking feeling mixed in with this great lift you get from doing something that you would never have done in a million years.
Before, I was like what's the worst that can happen, the most I'll just crash the van right? And I've driven a manual car before, its just working the clutch and accelerator. So here I was, going into the whole thing smug and all confident, and the first thing I did was to trigger the alarm on the van.
The alarm went off, screeching and wailing so loudly the whole industrial park could hear it. And of course I panicked. I mean even for a guy having a van going all nuts on you is pretty fly. It has this effect of shrinking your balls and deadening whatever machismo you had. I wasn't expecting this, and all I could think was "turn it off! turn it off!"
The van's owner rushed out from his FIFTH storey office to gesture and articulate at me to press the button on the remote. I pressed the button. No, actually I mashed all of them with my thumbs like how you play Street Fighter. Die you fucking buttons! Die you dastardly alarm! Even the banglas standing around were starting give me weird looks.
Obviously, with it being me, it turns out that the remote was spoilt. So the only way I could get started was to trigger the alarm, put the key in and start the engine, triggering the alarm some more, before waiting two minutes for the alarm to die so I could actually start driving. Hardly the most auspicious start.
Sensing my nervousness, the van's owner, I think his name was Ken or Dave or something, kindly offered to drive me to the nearest carpark while showing me the basics of operating the van. He was really kind, guiding and giving me advice, until about five minutes into it he suddenly went "Okay, I gotta go back to the office now. You'll be okay right? Park that thing back for me later. Cya."
And off he went. Leaving me with the van, its engine still idling, the gearshift stuck in neutral. I sat at the driver's seat of the van and just simply thought "What the fuck. Okay, if I die here today I know I'm covered with a damn lot of insurance."
And so I started driving the van. My first few attempts were met by the manual driver's bane of existence. Yes, the stall. You are not a true driver of the manual ways until you stall the vehicle at least once. After awhile, I got the hang of it, even if my awkward attempts at changing gears had the van jerking like it wanted to dry hump something.
It was so bad this Malay family walking up to my van, whom I saw from my side mirror, a middle aged lady and her son and daughter, actually walked right up to my left side window and looked into the driver's cabin, just to see who the hell was this sorry excuse for a van driver. I think I didn't give them much reassurance, seeing how they gave my van a wide berth immediately after.
After becoming a little bolder, I decided to drive on the open road, like "Dave" had showed me. It was somewhere around here that I realised that I couldn't exactly tell the difference in positions between the first and third gears, and the second and fourth. Especially the second and fourth. I just knew that if the van felt like it couldn't accelerate any more despite me pressing on the accelerator, with this horrible dragging sound, I was probably in the wrong gear.
Sometime around here I also realised the van had no rear view mirror, because somebody horned me and I couldn't see who the hell it was. I just kept driving and praying that I wouldn't need to change lanes.
Of course, it was about time to screw things up further. I soon realised that I had no idea where I was actually driving. In my haste to get back to the industrial park, I took one wrong turn, and ended up... on the expressway. Like seriously, fuck.
Ever tried going on the expressway in a vehicle you can barely ease out of 40kmh? It is damn fucking scary man! I just kept in the left lane, and all the way I was just thinking I need to stop somewhere soon, look for a slip road, bus stop, any freaking stop I could find. I was actually afraid I would drive somewhere and lose myself totally and have a lot of trouble getting back. And of course somewhere in there was this niggling feeling that I must have been crazy to agree to this in the first place.
I eventually ended up in Holland Village, where I drove into a nearby private estate to get my bearings. I realised that I wasn't far off, and in my enthusiasm to get back, I rode over a hump at 40kmh.
In a car, that's perfectly fine. The suspension will help cushion it quite a bit, and it's never really that bad because a car is small. In a van, it felt like the whole vehicle went airborne for a microsecond. I am not kidding you, because the whole van slammed down on the road so hard my head hit the ceiling of the van and it made this ridiculously loud "BANG" that had all the joggers on the road recoiling in shock. Not to mention a van has almost zero suspension, and making the din worse was the equipment rack at the back. It was also lifted airborne, and when it crashed back down it resembled a thunderclap going off right behind me. If it had been an older version of me, I might have just died right there from shock.
I then proceeded next to mount the back left wheel on a kerb while turning. Honestly, if a police officer was present I would have been hauled up, and my sorry ass would have been bailed out by my shocked parents who do not even let me near the car at home. The irony.
But I eventually made it back, and I actually parked the damn thing. I feel so proud of myself. I even had to open the door and hang out of it while parking like a true Ah Beng Ah Seng, because the van had no rear view mirror.
Damn. Absolutely crazy experience but I'm sure I won't forget it ever.