A series of unfortunate events

Today I went with Laura to watch Lemony Snicket’s ‘A series of unfortunate events’. The movie was nice, Jim Carrey was in his element as usual portraying all the various roles and brilliantly making them whacky and believable. The three Baudelair children were nicely cast too, Violet being the genius of the family and forever getting the lot out of tricky situations, Klaus being the more silent of the three was the bookworm while Baby Sunny was just great with her baby talk that pokes fun at the adults as well as her habit of biting into things. Uncle Montgomery Montgomery and Aunt Josephine were great in their individual roles as the children’s guardian as they try to outrun and outwit their conniving uncle, Count Olaf who is perpetually scheming to get the children’s fortune.

But that’s not the main point of this post. For me I’ve been having a series of unfortunate events myself, not to the point of having my house burn down, my parents killed in the fire and having to live with eccentric relatives. Well besides the various setbacks I’ve been having since the New Year, my luck must be ever dipping to lead to what I encountered today. After the show, the both of us were in bright moods, we had just shopped for gifts for tomorrow’s farewell party for the marine science juniors, had just come out from a great movie, groceries prepared for a cookout tonight and shopping for new shirts for Laura.

All of a sudden a commotion started as we were looking through the clothes section and Laura was busily picking out shirts at Pacific Ngeu Kee, Center Point. A group of rowdy Malay ruffians started screaming out loud and flinging shirts all over the place at the salesperson. As things escalates and they kept up the tirade while one of the guy started assaulting the guy with his belt and another with a broken off sales pole, we decided to inch out of the foray before a full blown incident broke out.

Somehow the guy was chasing the salesperson while another tried to find another route towards him, at this point the other 4 or 5 groupies with black shirts and dyed hair already were running away downstairs through the escalator. We were making our way when one of the idiots ran in our direction while we tried to get away from him. He bumped into me and started to find fault by landing punches. The only thing I could do besides standing there and being a target was to pummel him back with blows. Though I was getting quite a beating, the guy was quite thinly sized and his blows were not too bad though I got a few near my shoulders and arms. I managed to get the better of him and push him face down into the cloth rack while hitting his head into the price holder in addition to a few blows at his back.

Maybe it was my mistake to let him go in the hopes that he was winded and would lay still. To this point it seems to be near 5 minutes and there were no sign of the security personnel anywhere to restrain the ruffian while the salesgirls were just standing there and unable to help for some reason. The guy took this opportunity as my glasses were flung off myself in the scuffle to grab the umbrella that I let go before to use that as a weapon. Without a clear vision, all I can hope for was to grab it from him through bleary eyes. I had a lot of blows at my back at this point though not serious and finally Laura pulled him by the scruff of his shirt and he faced her almost with the intention of hitting but fell short when he realized it was a woman. At this point he started to sprout profanities as the guards finally came and took him into the room.

There wasn’t much injury to myself, a small bump near the base of my neck, bruises on my back and a sore knuckle from pounding him. Our umbrella didn’t make it though, split of the handle with the force he was hitting back. It’s really something when you are out on a nice shopping trip and suddenly random violence breaks out and you become a target. I think this must be the first time I was really caught in the middle of a fight and seriously I don’t recall much of what happen at the moment besides being worked up on pure adrenaline to fight back. Certainly it is not an experience I relish to find myself in again soon. I figured I gave as well as I received with major bruising on his face, such that I shouldn’t have been lenient and continued hitting him till unconsciousness took him, maybe that would have gave me a little slice of satisfaction. Well at least in the end he was apprehended though I would’ve liked to sue his ass off till his last penny and punch him right in the face another time.

In the end I acted up to the fact that he was going to hurt Laura and did my best to fend him off and detract his attention away from her to me. If he had laid a hand on her I swear I’d kick his balls till there were none and not hold back my blows. I was a little shook up but Laura was fuming at the guy. We managed to pick ourselves up no thanks to the staff of the store that could only offer apologies and get back him. At least I was not hurt badly and Laura got off without anything. Seriously the place here is not getting any safer with idiot people like these running free. Somehow in the back of my mind I feel my streak of misfortunes is not yet over.