In usual Sheylara fashion, I am now publishing a three-day-late report.

It’s kind of a protest against jumpy journalists whose lives are solely driven by the need to publish news that haven’t even happened yet. (As a former journalist, my official stance is that I hate being a kan cheong spider, thus the former journalist status.)

(Note to non-Singaporeans: “Kan cheong spider” is a Singaporean colloquialism roughly describing someone who is so anxious about things and results that it borders on obsession.)

Anyway, last Saturday, Pingsters from Ping.sg held a competition at Miss Clarity Cafe to determine, once and for all, who the slackiest latecomer of all time is.

There were many strong contenders for the ultimate title of Slackiest Latecomer, whom I shall introduce in ascending order of strength.

For starters, this following group of people were utterly disgraced and disqualified from the competition by arriving at the venue within 30 minutes of the stipulated contest time.

Claudia and Chillycraps sadly took themselves out of the running by actually being punctual. Shocking.

Nanny Wen and Qiaoyun thought they stood a good chance at grabbing the title by arriving 10 minutes late. But, alas, it just wasn’t late enough. In fact, it was too early. When they arrived, only Claudia and Chillycraps were present, so they went to join them at the “disqualified” table.

(Qiaoyun is represented by a red and white Mickey Mouse handbag in the picture because she can’t humanly possibly be in the picture and taking the picture at the same time.)

As a result, Nanny Wen was quite disappointed and tried to hide behind a very colourful and cheerful menu, thinking that people could be fooled into believing that she’s a happy girl if she has a cheerful menu for a face.

Qiaoyun decided to show her the absurdity of her logic by doing a live demonstration, so Nanny Wen could see for herself how ridiculous it looked. That’s what friends are for.

To ease Nanny Wen’s pain, Qiaoyun tried to distract her by pointing out some tourist attractions in the cafe.

The two ladies spent a good many minutes enthralled by the cafe’s creativity. It was a good way to pass time while waiting for other contestants to show up.

And then, the “disqualifieds” discovered that an even better way to pass time was to eat.

What a eureka moment!

And they ordered.

And it came.

FOOD!!!

The stock answer for the day appeared to be “not bad”. Whenever a question was posed to a fellow contender that went along the lines of “How did you like your abcdefg?”, the answer was always: “Not bad.”

(Singaporeans can be so lazy and uncreative in their speech.)

The prices were pretty reasonable for food that’s graded “not bad”. Main courses were mostly less than $10. And there’s always the pretty wall attractions to pacify your soul should the food fail to do so.

But food is secondary and wall decorations are tertiary.

There is a competition going on so we need to get back to that.

The first mildly strong contender appeared while the disqualifieds were in the midst of stuffing their faces with their “not bads”.

At 35 minutes, DK was the first to clock an acceptable time to be in the running for the Slackiest Latecomer award.

It’s a well-known fact that latecomer contestants are mostly humble folk who shy at having their photographs taken, therefore we see DK represented by his hand instead of his face.

However, the next contender, by virtue of being the founder of Ping.sg, is probably very used to media exposure and therefore affably agreed to have his photo taken. Uzyn the man beat DK by a whopping 16 minutes. What an achievement!

Spectators were quite amazed and cheered loudly for Uzyn, which accounts for his satisfied smile.

In the middle of the competition, this reporter got tired of tracking the contestants so she slacked off to do other more fun things.

She trained her camera on Nanny Wen while Nanny Wen was having a conversation with some random person. And then she started snapping away.

It made Nanny Wen very self-conscious, to the amusement of this reporter.

Nanny Wen tried to foil this reporter’s photography endeavours by covering her face with her hands, but it didn’t work. Her impish face refused to be covered up.

By this time, more contenders had arrived. Here’s a group photo because this reporter was too lazy to take so many individual contestant photos.

Suffice it to say that the ones sitting on the three tables (yellow, red, green) nearest to the camera are in the running for the award. Their times range from 35 minutes late to 75 minutes late. The others further back are the disqualifieds.

Everyone thought that was it. People were ready to determine and announce the winner.

And then one more contender sauntered in nonchalantly at 85 minutes, to the chagrin of certain individuals who thought they would be winning the award.

“Neh neh ni boo boo,” said Ethan. “I win!”

What a ruckus that generated. It was such an emotional moment that forks and knives flew fast and furious and people got victimised for no apparent reason.

In times like these, it’s always best for all involved parties to retreat and calm down.

After all, this was supposed to be a friendly competition.

Food was once again used as a distraction.

Petty thefts were committed with Nanny Wen stealing DK’s potatoes after she finished stealing Arzhou‘s potatoes.

Friendships were made with a pretty, smart PhD student called Simply Jean.

Uzyn was terrorised by DK.

And Miccheng showed the world that not only girls are capable of acting cute.

But but BUT!!!

All these happenings were merely distractions to the most important event of the day — the unveiling of the winner of the Ping.sg Slackiest Latecomer Award.

Long after the winner was thought to have been determined and medals were already getting printed in anticipation of an award presentation ceremony, the ULTIMATE winner showed up.

In fact, in an impressive show of dedication, this winner showed up after the event was already over. Which just all the more makes her the champion.

JENG JENG JENG…. presenting…

Ping.sg Slackiest Latecomer, clocking an amazing record-breaking time of 206 minutes!

Rinaz at first shyly declined to have her photo taken and but finally caved in from massive peer pressure.

Rinaz deserves a standing ovation! Woot woot!

And thus concludes the day’s events.

The organiser of the competition thanks all participants for their hearty participation and sportsmanship.

See you at the next competition!