Fooled By A Pancake: A True Story

I've been rather busy these past few days; ever since the last update of this blog. See, our next (first, for this year) debate competition is officially next Thursday, and I'd be damned if I took the occasion lightly.

We (the main debaters) have been meeting non-stop. We had our first meeting yesterday at McDonald's, where we didn't get much done, and ended up getting trapped in the rain after a quick break to the nearby 7-11 (I'll elaborate more on that in a bit). Today, in fact, we just had our second meeting -- but this time at a more suitable location; Book Culture; and this Sunday we are gonna schedule in our final, last-minute meet before the official debate competition.

Its been rough, planning all this. And the fact that I was just forced to do loads of research and am forced to get two speeches done AND memorized by this Sunday brings me back to the suckier parts of debate.

I mean, how could I possibly forget the struggle I had to endure last year? So far I've just remembered the various victories and the many lepaking we were able to schedule in during class hours... now I know.

Of course, I am taking this debate thing far less seriously than I did last year. I honestly do not want to get into a nervous breakdown before the competition, and I don't want to cry if I lose, so... whatever. I'm just hoping to take the stage right and claim this year my own.

Anyways, on to the tale of the very unfortunate Wednesday...

We met up around 2.20pm. Our original plan was to meet and totally go all out; not take our own sweet time and schedule in some unwanted crap-sessions. But somehow, being the "oh-so-focused" group of people we were, we could not help but to constantly stray out of topic.

I don't know exactly how it happened, but we had somehow managed to go from "Internet Promotes Learning" (our title for debate next week), to 7-11, to One Tree Hill. Don't know why, but most schools take us for granted. Perhaps it is merely the name, "SMK Bukit Kemuning" that makes us sound like kampung-ers, but I, personally, do not get it.

We have a McDonald's, for crying out loud!! Not to mention 3 (count 'em, 3!!) 7-11s! I mean, does that not just scream "civilization" to you?! What kampung do you personally know has 3 7-11s?? Besides, we almost even had a Jusco!

Ahem.

Apart from that, after the whole trip to ONE of the THREE 7-11s in our dear, wonderful and very much civilized town, we got caught in the rain on the way back. Me with hands full of goodies I just spent on. I still remember it; a blue-coloured, terribly melted slurpy in my right hand, and a delightful Picnic bar in my left.

So, there we stood. Sitting (or in my case, standing) underneath Proton, the shop right across from McDonald's (a symbolism of civilization), watching the heavy rain fall from the gray-coloured heavens, waiting for our parents to arrive... happy, happy day.

And today was another happy day. Oh, yes. We had gone out to this quaint little restaurant called "Treats" while supposedly waiting for our ex-Third Speaker, kG, to arrive. It was a pretty well-decorated restaurant... the menus were sweet... it even had decent background music! However, as all good things must have its faults, ours happened to be a rather big one (or should I say "little"?)

After recieving the menu, we decided to order this very appetizing-looking plate of pancakes, which, according to the menu, had a stack of FOUR in one plate. The size of the pancakes were also decently large, and was topped with very attractive syrup and a stick of butter. Scattered on the side of the dish, making it look even more scrumptious, was a handfull of strawberries and blueberries.

Being the suckers we were, Zenj and I decided to try some. We bought only one plate, deciding so because we thought there would be four pancakes (two for each) and would split the cost in half. I mean, a plate of pancakes THAT appetizing would definately be worth its price, right? RM6.90 only, right? If its as good as they made it look.

After minutes of waiting, our pancakes finally arrived. What was placed on the table before us was not at all what we had expected.

There was a plate, yes. Pancakes, yes. Syrup, a bottle, in fact.

But the pancakes were mini-sized and the syrup was cheap and there weren't even proper strawberries! We paid RM6.90 for a plate of THREE mini-pancakes and a small stick of strawberry JAM.

JAM!!

Grr... You have no idea how terribly cheated I felt at that moment. I even had Audrey take pictures of the pancakes with her camera-phone. I'll show it to you on my next post, together with the picture shown on the menu, and a delightful ad for men.

Til next time!