Yanti’s Bicycle

One day, Yanti, my super crazy, petite, noisy kost-mate announced that she had bought a bike. Animated, she told me about how cool this bike was, and how it was just like her niece’s bike, “exactly like kuping’s !”. She always refers her niece as “kuping” , the ear. Anyway, I hadn’t been able to see the bike as it was lodged at her brother’s house most of the time.

As I opened the gate of my kost-an with a sigh of relief that work was over yesterday, I saw a bike. I knew instantly that it must be Yanti’s bike!

OMG ! OMG! The bike was a sepeda mini, complete with the basket, just like what most girls’ (of my age) had during primary school. I haven’t had the chance to take the picture of Yanti’s bike, but I found a picture that well represented the bike, except Yanti’s bike is not pink. What made it funnier was the size! Let’s just say, I had a good memory and I knew that this bike was of the same size as my bike when I was in 3rd grade primary school.

Very fortunately, I was hungry and the idea of having a bowl of bakmie filled my head. Both Icha and Yanti wanted bakmie as well, so I decided to take-away some bakmie from Bakmie Lili. Yanti told me to use her bike.

Hmm … I thought, if I use that bike, obviously I’ll look very silly, but I will reach that place faster. I changed my top to a frumpy oversized t-shirt, and tied my hair in a slightly messed up bun in order to detract attention. This was my splendid idea: sepeda mini is either used by little kids or domestic helpers, I can’t disguise as little kids, therefore, my only option was obviously the latter ^^.

So I hopped on the bike and left. I took the sepeda mini to cruise with me along the narrow alleys of Tanjung Duren. It was quite difficult to manoeuvre thanks to its small size, but I guess this bike suits Yanti best.

Suddenly, a rather large, wooden thing with wheels, appeared in the nose of Yanti’s sepeda mini ! A male voice in Javanese accent exclaimed, “ Aduh mbaaakkk !! Ati-ati dong !“.

I must have forgotten that I was in Jakarta, where food vendors push barrows containing yummy local delicacies around the roads mindlessly! Arrgghh ! I almost ran over a ketoprak barrow! Luckily I stopped at the right time.

Imagine if I didn’t stop on time!
Imagine if it was not ketoprak barrow but bakso instead, where splashes of hot soup could send the poor vendor and me to hospital for weeks!
My “equity” insurance won’t cover anything! Jamsostek? Forget it.

Nonetheless, I managed to reach the bakmie stall safely and returned with two pouches of bakmie. I passed by some people I know, and they didn’t seem to recognise me in Yanti’s way-too-small bike. The camouflage must have worked. Phew!

I’m getting to like this bike, as Yanti said, “Now we can save more money. We don’t need bajaj to go to pasar kopro! ^^”. Yay ! Go sepeda mini !