This is a story my colleague told me about his uncle. His uncle is rather superstitious and believes in a lot of weird things. When he tests positive for a certain rapidly spreading illness, his first reaction is to go to a bomoh — Malaysian witch-doctor — for an exorcism. For various reasons, my colleague is stuck accompanying his uncle to the bomoh.

Bomoh: “Okay, I can exorcise you. Hold still, please.”

Uncle: “Okay.”

Bomoh: “Begone, evil spirits!”

He pulls out a toy laser gun and points it at [Uncle]’s head.

Bomoh: “All-laaah!”

Typing this out does not give it justice. The way my colleague repeated it, it sounded like a mix of singsong, bombastic, and high.

He pulls the trigger and the gun lights up.

Bomoh: “Fire, fire, fire! Pew, pew, pew! Fire, fire, fire!”

My colleague’s jaw drops, [Uncle]’s jaw drops, and they sit there, stunned.

Bomoh: “Not enough? Okay. Duaaal wieeld!”

He says that last bit the same way he said, “Allah!” previously.

He pulls out another toy gun and fires it at [Uncle].

My colleague didn’t tell me what happens next, but when the exorcism is over…

Uncle: “Uh, maybe we should go to the hospital.”

Colleague: “You think?”

Once he finished his quarantine, my colleague returned to work and told me all about it.

Colleague: “Like, the man was hip. I didn’t think that bomohs were so advanced these days.”

Me: “He sounded like he was high on something.”

Colleague: “Oh, he probably was. But that was just silly, man.”

I work in a very cheap budget hotel. A guest has booked a twin room — two single beds. I am supposed to close the counter at twelve but I have to wait for the guest until two am. After she has checked in, she comes back down.

Guest: “Excuse me, I requested a large bed. Why did you give me a twin bed? And why is the room so small?”

Me: “You booked a twin room, miss, so we gave you what you booked.”

Guest: “I want a large bed. Give me a room with a large bed.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but we are fully booked tonight so I can’t move you to another room.”

Guest: “Then what are all the empty rooms here?”

She points at our monitor.

Me: “Oh, these rooms cannot be used at the moment. The aircon is leaking in one and this one doesn’t have a TV. Also, the rate would be different.”

Guest: “Just give me that. I will pay. I have money.”

The next day:

Guest: “Why is the aircon leaking? I paid for a hotel room, not a sauna!”

Manager: “I’m sorry, miss, but my colleague already mentioned that to you last night, and you still insisted on that room.”

Guest: “I can get a much better room at another place! You’re just trying to deceive me. I will report you to the police!”

Manager: “Go ahead, miss. Call the police. Also, if you think the other place is better, then I can give you a full refund right now in cash and you can go find another place.”

She got the refund but ended up returning to our hotel because the other hotel was expensive!

My father owns several shophouses which he rents out to businesses. With the global health crisis, many of these businesses are struggling. One of them, a hotel, was unable to pay their rent for the month. The owner was getting pretty desperate, as he was nearly bankrupt, even with my father only charging him 30% rent for the past three months.

As things happened, that month was the start of durian season, so the owner offered to pay his rent in durians, freshly harvested from his uncle’s plantation, for that month. Seeing no other choice, and also being a big durian lover, my father accepted.

Two days later, a truck pulled into our driveway to unload over one hundred durians — not just regular durians, but all high quality and expensive durians. It was enough to cover the month’s rent and then some. We ate like kings for the next few months.

Unfortunately, the hotel owner managed to scrape together enough money to pay the rent for the next few months, so we never got rent in delicious delicacies ever again.

My friend’s dad is a lecturer at a medical school. He has a friend with a rare condition called situs inversus, meaning his internal organs are mirror images of the usual configuration. He likes to pull a prank on first-year students.

Lecturer: “Is it possible for a person to have their organs the wrong way around and still be alive and healthy?”

Students: “No, sir!”

At some point later he brings his friend in as a model patient and has a student try to find his heartbeat.

After muddling around with a stethoscope, one particularly confused student responded, “Sir, this man has no heart!”

My sister works in Sabah. Most of her colleagues are local indigenous people from ethnic groups who were traditionally hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers.

Colleague: “Some of my uncles from the village are coming to visit. I think I’ll take them to the zoo.”

The following Monday:

Sister: “How was your uncles’ visit?”

Colleague: “Well, when we saw the animals, they were like, ‘Ah, yes, I’ve killed that one before,’ and, ‘This one is delicious, and that one is delicious.’ I am never taking those guys to the zoo again!”