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My dad was robbed this morning.

He was at USJ 9’s CIMB Bank at about 6.15am wanting to pay some credit card bills by cheque, and as he was filling up some forms, a parang was pressed against his neck – the wielder was a Malay man, unmasked. Dad was asked to remove the gold chain around his neck, and my dad did so as slowly as he could to buy some time.

When he gave up his merely 3-month old PDA and RM50, the robber asked him to withdraw his money from the ATM machine but my dad said that’s impossible as his ATM card is only useable at Maybank. That was when some other dude passed by and the robber took off with an accomplice on a motorcycle.

Though we’re all very thankful that my dad escaped the incident unharmed and didn’t lose anything further, the fact that he lost his phone – which he had been deliberating for ages whether to purchase it or not, and then happily told me, like a kid with a new toy, about his purchase via e-mail when I was somewhere in Thailand – was a bitter pill to swallow. My dad very rarely purchased anything remotely expensive for himself – he was so very careful with his money, which I suppose is partly where I picked up my thrifty attribute from.

We’re all too used to saying “It wouldn’t happen to me”, and when it does happen.. the rocketing impact is far greater and you just want to let the entire world to know:

There are bad men in our midst.