I was carrying Regine on her mobile car seat across our apartment carpark with Emily, when a heap pulled up beside us. The driver window was down, and there was a middle aged Malay bloke hanging his right arm out of it. He had a very unkempt outlook and one of his eyes was lopsided (probably a scar or something), and I was absolutely positive that I hadn’t seen the guy in the neighborhood before.
He then pointed at Regine, and asked…
“New baby?”
I was not sure if there was to be such a thing as a ‘new baby’, ‘old baby’ or even a ‘used baby’ in this world. Since I was sure I didn’t buy Regine off a fleamarket, I assumed that she’s new. So I answered
“Yeah.”
It was replied with a faked smile to paint an impression that I’m an incredibly friendly person. Then to our sheer befuddlement, the guy exclaimed excitedly
“Congratulations!”
It was uttered with a smile even faker than mine. Emily and I were like, totally dumbfucked by his overly unctuous behavior. Being a mild mannered couple that we are (ahem), we just thanked him like he had just bestowed us the blessing for having a lifetime’s worth of multi-orgasm, and we quickly bolted off into the elevator.
I don’t know what’s with that guy, maybe he was trying to be friendly. Maybe he was just a lonely old fart who was looking for someone to talk to. But whatever he was to be, it didn’t go down very well on us. What he did can be best described as ‘freakish’, at least to our impressions.
Like, there are certain ways to chat up with strangers and make them comfortable at the same time. You don’t just walk up to anyone and express your delirium about their child (or worse, touch them…). That’s just not very… natural. You’ll freak people out more than the intended goodwill. Especially at times like this when crimes are rife and our national police force are worrying about who should pay for their emergency number bills.
You can never be too careful especially when dealing with strangers.
I’d say, if you want to be friendly, just give a nod and smile, then leave it to the other person to reciprocate. (And keep the fuck off from his/her child.)


