10 July 2020 – A Day of Surprises
10 July 2020 was a day of surprises.
The first surprise was in the morning. My wife and I woke up early to help an elderly neighbour go to the polling station: this neighbour is 90 years old, and blind, and rarely leaves his home, so there was a fall risk. Hence I borrowed my parents’ car, and dropped my wife and Uncle DC at the drop-off point, for them to go to the polling station.
The polling station was at the void deck of Block 92 near our home.
After we sent Uncle DC back home, I popped to Blk 85 to buy some drinks and snacks, and returned to the polling station. I went up to a Presiding Officer, and asked him if I could pass them some snacks and drinks to the officers, to thank them for their service.
To my surprise, the first question asked was: “are you affiliated with any party?”
And then when I clarified that I was doing this as a resident, “That’s very nice of you, thank you! But let me ask my senior.”
And he called his senior Presiding Officer, who also asked if I was affiliated with any party, before saying “Sorry, thank you very much, but I need to check if we are allowed to.” He then popped onto a call with someone else to check for a couple of minutes, before turning to me, saying “Thank you very much for the kindness and thought, but unfortunately we are not able to accept this. Maybe you can leave it or distribute it to the other residents who are waiting in line?”
I was a little surprised by this strictness, but another part of me was also impressed about the need to be objective and apolitical, I guess, so I didn’t insist. I just said I understood, but stood there with the big heavy bag of drinks and halal snacks, wondering if I should distribute it to the residents. A part of me thought of doing so, but I was also mindful that it might create more problems, as the polling station doesn’t allow food and there were also no nearby dustbins. I was also concerned if the residents might huddle around or if the taking of the kuehs might inadvertently spread disease…. so in the end I lugged them back to my condo, where I gave the drinks and snacks to my condo security guards.
The next surprise came when I went to vote in the same polling station later that afternoon. The line was as long as in the morning, but it was extremely fast and efficient: literally, it took just 10 mins from the time I stood in line, to me leaving the polling station. I was super impressed: in fact, my wife was also surprised (“you’re back already? that was fast!”) This was a stark contrast from the experience by other people, and including some of the videos shown on Channel News Asia of incredibly long lines at polling stations: I was quite lucky.
The third surprise of the day was a sobering reminder of the unreliability of life: what seems constant can change in an eyeblink.
I had just finished working out around 6.15pm, when I got a call from my mother: “you drive the car over. I think we need to send your grandma to the hospital.”
And after I arrived there at around 6.30pm, I saw this:
With some difficulty, the SCDF officers managed to put my grandma onto a sling, and they brought her out onto the stretcher in the corridor. It was difficult (my grandma weights about 80kg), and I had to help them hold the oxygen tank while all four of them struggled and got my grandma onto the stretcher. My mother followed the ambulance to the hospital, while I later drove my father and the helper to the hospital. After I dropped them off, I headed home to have dinner, while my parents were at the hospital talking to the doctors, and sorting out my grandma’s situation.
[Update 12 July 20: we went to see my grandma yesterday, and she has largely recovered. Luckily, the stroke was discovered early, so they were able to give her the anti-stroke medicine within the golden-hour. She was talking so loudly and nonstop, without any slurring, that the nurses had to ask her to quieten down to let other patients rest. Now I know where I get my big mouth genes from…. haha)
Later that evening, after my grandma was finally admitted into a stroke ward, my parents initially wanted to stay on in the hospital, but I insisted that they go home to rest: there were five nurses and one doctor in the special stroke ward that my grandma was in. Staying in the hospital would just have increased the exposure of my parents (who are also vulnerable to Covid). So I dropped off both parents at home.
The last surprise of the day was the announcement of the election results. I had thought that the election would probably be a repeat of 2015, as I thought that crises tend to benefit the government (as shown in South Korea).
The results of the sample counts that came in were a huge surprise, especially this:
But suffice to say that when the news broke out, it was a surprise, indeed, capping a whole day of surprises for me.