Guys Night Out

As one of brudders back in the old Army days just flew back in to Singapore, from China where he is posted, we planned for a small night out to watch the match between Italy and Czech Republic last night. There was just 3 of us – Jimmy, Phan and myself. After much discussion, we ended up at a coffee shop near Phan’s place, which is at Potong Pasir, simply because there’s a big plasma TV there. Yay! GRC of the opposition party!!

Both Phan and Jimmy are betting fanatics (and plays the stock market as well) and thus the match was of high interest to them. Me, being the one who will always end up betting on the losing side, chose not to indulge myself in such luxuries. Anyway I didn’t quite want the Italians to lose by betting on them to win. Yes, I do believe in the powers that my constellations hold over what happens in the world of soccer.

For dinner, we had this noodle-cum-kway diao with sliced fish dish, fried chicken wings and drumsticks, plus the mixed stuff called ngo hiang. The bill for the stupid ngo hiang came up to $6.80 and it was like 40 cents per piece! What a rip off! The people of Potong Pasir must really be having it bad, if the hawkers need to charge such high prices for common food.

Anyway, the dinner-cum-Guys-Night-Out ended this way. Phan and Jimmy were busy talking about the bets they had placed, while I was gorging on the overpriced food and watching soccer. Jimmy’s other friends would occasionally send him an SMS to keep him updated on the other match which was running at the same time. At one point, Ghana scored against the USA and Jimmy excitedly said, “Yay! 1-0!!”. This bespectacled guy from the next table came up to Phan and asked, “Who scored?”. Phan was slightly taken aback, but replied, “Err…Ghana 1…”, then turned back and gave me this blur look.

For the first half, Italy had gone 1 up while Czech Republic went 1 down (in men that is, after a red card was dealt). We decided the match was over and very boring, and Phan was perspiring all over because he has been accustomed to the China climate. He laughingly exagerated that he can’t breathe and might faint if he stays on any longer. Thus when the whistle was blown for halftime, it also marked the end of our Guys’ Night Out.