Shoes & Flames
I had a nightmare.
I was a 70-year-old taxi driver who lost his licence recently. I went to a hardware store to buy a bottle of thinner for the paint I was about to use on my metal door and suddenly, the entire police force and civil defence force descended on me. Ah !!
I woke up. Drenched in what I thought was sweat, but later realised that my son who was leeping next to me had wet his bed again.
Just when you think it’s enough to be able to duck from a shoe thrown at you when you’re not a very well-liked leader, the flames of anger engulf you in an attempt to give you a premature cremation before you can even threaten the attacker with life imprisonment. The moral of the story? Don’t play with fire, but Ah Pek is no kid with a bright future ready to go up in smoke. He is 70 years old and has nothing to lose. Maybe our shoe-throwing journalist was thinking that his shoes would not give him more trouble than he can handle. There are of course, safer, albeit less interactive ways to give Bush what his karma is worth.
What’s next? Or rather, who is next? The first sensational MRT track suicide was followed by several others. Those of us with a bit of imagination and a lot of cynicism will probably be able to predict more daring attacks on MPs by foolhardy or even suicidal individuals who aren’t too concerned about life imprisonment.
This is worrying. Bodyguards have been ruled out. Our MPs must get close enough to the people to shake hands and distribute ang paos. With our MPs so used to winning elections without even a bruised ego, would dangerous, life-threatening situations like these frighten them from serving the public? Is it time to review the salaries of our top civil servants, MPs and ministers? Would we need to attract them with salaries comparable to that of Hollywood stuntmen? At the next parliamentary session, we may hear a proposal to benchmark our ministers’ pay to say, Jackie Chan’s.
I wonder how many plates of char kway teow that would be. 8.5% GST?
