Before I even say anything, I should apologise to Hermit Crab, aka Long-ge, for failing to send him off at the airport on 2 Oct 06. I actually forgot he is leaving on that day! My god! If possible, I would call him personally and offer my sincere apologies.
Chuyao, one of the three members of the Three Musketeers (the other two being YY and me), messaged me earlier to inform us about the departure date of Long-ge and asked if anyone is going to send Long-ge off as he himself would not be able to make it. On hindsight, I should have replied immediately but did not and instead, choose to let it rest in my inbox. I would forget about this message eventually and the performing of a tiring, overnight duty required of me on 1 Oct certainly didn't help much.
In the end, just a day after Long-ge departed, while I was working, a suddent thought struck me and I was going "F**k s**t!". Still trying to convince myself that I could have remembered the departure date wrongly, I called Long-ge's mobile number and the familiar operator's voice told me the "line is currently unavailable". Fearing the worst, I went on to call Chuyao and heard two news that I didn't want to hear - Long-ge indeed departed on 2 Oct and nobody from our clique went to send him off! Long-ge, if you see this, sincere apologies and forgive this friend of yours who is getting old and forgetful.
Now to say our "love-hate" relationship. I would be the first to admit that during the early days, my friendship with Long-ge was not as stable as, say with Chuyao. We had a lot of skirmishes during secondary school days (perhaps it's just me... for reference, please look at previous post by me, titled "Devil Inside Me I"), mostly in soccer games, where I always got lost in the heat of the moment. Credit to Long-ge, he remained silent even when I'm getting abusive, though he will nag at me when the thing blows over. Hahaha... Now? The fire in me has mellowed down considerably and skirmishes or even a war of words are considered rare nowadays...
One thing that we could identify Shiyong with is his mega memory. We used to joke that his brain is a computer with a hard disk of unlimited storage space. Hahaha... For example, our clique would think of an event that happened during our secondary school days and we would struggle to remember the details of the event. Long-ge would step in and furnish us with all the nitty gritty details of the event and we would like "Wow...". I think Long-ge is proud of this too. However, together with Chuyao, we have expressed doubts at his memory and had even concluded that Long-ge may be "hala-ing" with us all this while! Hahaha...
The other thing we could identify with was his gel-up hair. "Long-ge" came about because of two things; one, he was the Treasurer of our class and he will chase us for money like a loanshark and two, his gel-up hair. To get a better idea of gel-up hair, think Chow Yun Fatt in God of Gamblers. In fact, I think Long-ge modelled himself after Chow! Hahaha... Oh ya! The most hilarious thing about his hair that I could remembered was his hair would come in handy during spot-checks. Why do I say that? Due to the large amount of gel he used for his gel-up hair, sometimes "remains" of the gel could be found stuck in his hair and guys whose hair were not exactly short, would say "Long-ge, borrow some from you", and start "taking" gel from his hair and apply to their hair! Yuck! I wondered have I done it before... Hmmm... Hahahaa... Revive the God of Gamblers Hair ba Long-ge... Hahaha...
On a more serious note, some people might actually find Long-ge not that likable because of his sarcasm, straightforwardness (is there such a word?) and his "cold" jokes. Being a friend with him for 13 years, I would say that I'm actually glad he's my friend Long-ge, thanks for being there when I'm down and out and I hope there would be many more 13 years to come for our friendship. As Chuyao put it in a recent message to me, we have lost a valuable tennis partner. We will await your coming back from Switzerland in a year's time to continue our intense tennis battles. Switzerland... Hmmm... Who knows? Maybe you can pick up some tricks from Roger Federer when you are there! Hahaha...
Farewell my friend and take care...
