Meeting A Racer

Last night, my friend in highschool sent me a text, saying she was in Bandung. I replied quickly and asked her to meet somewhere, for dinner. She asked back where to.

"Di mana yang enak? Chempor atau Halaman?"

Damn. All the good-tasting foods for her meant all the deep-pocket-digging ones for me. But hey, eating there during first week of the month would not clean out my monthly budget anyway. Beside, considering we hadn't met for quite long time, I thought it was tolerable.

"Halaman aja."

At least, I didn't have to spend more money for the angkot!

At eight, she called me and we agreed to meet up at McD Simpang Dago -- the place she only knew around. She said there were four of them, including her boyfriend. We lastly rearranged the meeting point -- straight to the Halaman.

And there we met. I reached the place at the same time they arrived. I introduced myself to this gentlemen and another new name.

We then were directed to our seats.

I started to smoke, so did he. Thanks to this Indian-brilliant-invention-ever, we easily chitchatted about things. They said they were here to watch a drag-race competition on Sunday.

"Elo tau nggak tentang itu?"

"Nggak,"

I had been told that he was a car-racer. Well, I must say he did act like one. He smiled a lot, making fun of his girl friend all the time, joking around. Nothing serious.

To me, it's "pembalap banget".

Being used to surrounded by girls, he might be thinking he was one step behind Schummy.

She -- my highschool friend -- and I ordered steak. He chose special fried rice ("...with no shrimp and egg" he moaned), and the two girls had only french fries. Had finished their meals before us, they stood up and went to the clothing outlet to look around.

I was glad. I had time to talk about something more personal and more "me" for about twenty minutes.

Later on, they got back. My new friend bought a new belt. They were laughing. He told us about the shopkeeper, who had mistakenly inserted the price to the Visa machine.

"Itu harganya 165 ribu. Tapi si mbak-nya salah, dia masukin 265 ribu. Jadinya dia ngasih kita seratus ribu," he said. Still with laugh.

"Udah gitu mbak-nya ngomporin banget. Gua lagi liat-liat jam tangan, padahal gua nggak bawa cash. Eh dia malah nawarin, 'jadi satu aja Mas?'"

At this point, I could hardly hold myself. If it hadn't been for her, I would had quit faking my smile. As you can see, I was in these situations:

It's the first week of the month, and I was already halfway through my spending-much-money.

It's just two days after the raise of the fuel's price, and I was talking with a smiley car-racer who obviously didn't seem to have problems with that. None of them would, I guessed.

It's my meeting with an old friend, and I couldn't catch up well.

But let's cut it off.

However, I should be thankful that I didn't have to pay the bill. It was on him :)