The Boy Scout Vs. The Drama Queen

"I'm gonna need to call in today," the drama queen exclaimed in frustration.

"No, stupid!"

"Ok, maybe I won't. I'll just call them and tell the truth."

"Tell them what?" the boy scout, close to the end of his patience, asked, almost in a condescending manner.

"That I can't come to work because I don't have dancewear today. And I don't have access to all my essentials: my wallet, my Ipod, my Octopus, my phone even.. (Oh shit! How will I call them anyway?) ...because everything's inside the house, and..."

"And we locked ourselves out. You think they'd think that's cute?"

After just a beat, the Drama Queen's face lit up as an idea suddenly popped up. "Oh my God! Maybe I should just go and meet up with Dan in Disney so I can borrow his housekeys. Do I have time? If I go now..."

"In boxers? You're actually thinking to travel to Disney in boxers?" The boy scout was now torn. They were standing behind Kenny, the landlord's son who was relentlessly trying to open the steel door with two pieces of 3-foot iron wire. He slid both wires between the grills which were on the same level as their heads and painstakingly tried to get their hooked ends to clasp onto the door latch inside. It had been 10 minutes, and still, there was absolutely no sign of salvation. Kenny was in his mid-30's, a bit chubby and quite nerdy too. His fashion sense was what a lot of people might consider passe; and his english vocabulary was limited to "hi" and "sorry". He certainly was not, in fact he was not even remotely close to being, the drama queen's type of guy. And this only made the situation worse, because the boy scout knew that if the drama queen fancied Kenny, even the slightest bit, she wouldn't be as panicky as she was at that moment. Standing beside the drama queen, the boy scout was having a hard time deciding which of his urges to act on first: the urge to mock and belittle her concerns by laughing at her, or the urge to put her bickering to a screeching halt by spanking her in the head.

"You're right. I can't take the train to Disney. My Octopus is inside the flat." Her voice started to shake as if her world was about to shatter to a million pieces and she was ready for a major breakdown scene. Like the way she did when she was 9 and her grandma refused to buy her a toy iron and ironing board because they were for girls.

At this point, the boy scout had already moved from where his was standing over the past 15 minutes. He looked out the window that was on the other end of the hall. "Kenny!", he called out enthusiastically. "Don't bother anymore. I think I know what to do."

Kenny stopped what he was doing and stared at him. He obviously didn't understand what the boy scout said.

"What are you gonna do?!" the drama queen asked with both excitement and fear, and she was ignored by the boy scout.

" I. Go. Out. Here. Go There. Go. In." In the most elementary of words and the biggest, most indicating of gestures, the boy scout spelled out the plan to Kenny. He was gonna go out of the window, onto the hanging ledge and into their balcony, where the door was unlocked. He smiled at Kenny and waited for him to reciprocate, as a sign of approval, but Kenny just stared at him, dumbfounded. He smiled at the drama queen briefly and looked away before she could even try to stop him.

Without hestitation, the boy scout raised his left foot chest-high, climbed the windowsill and pushed himself out. The drama queen clutched his pearls in horror and gasped, praying that the wind wouldn't blow and throw him off-balance. Less than two minutes later, the front door opened and the boy scout showed himself to Kenny who was still holding the wires and didn't seem to know what was happening.

"Oh, good!" Kenny said, which surprised the boy and the drama queen. They didn't know Kenny knew a third word in english.

"No sweat," the boy scout affirmed. And he wasn't lying. Contrary to what the drama queen might have projected, it wasn't that dangerous. The ledge was about 2 feet wide and the concrete fence that separated their balcony from the ledge wasn't more than 4 feet tall. And their flat was only on the second (first floor, in HK) floor. Even if he fell, the worst that could happen was a sprain.

Still, the drama queen thought it was a scene from "Mission: Impossible". So as soon as I got my hands on my computer, the drama queen in me defied the boy scout in me and typed: "Rye did the unthinkable" in my Facebook status.