There's a Malay saying literally translated to “When durians fight, the cucumber gets minced”. If you have not seen a durian — it's that hard shelled fruit with spikes all over, tastes exquisite but (to non durian lovers) stinks to high heaven. I've heard eating durian described as having the most exquisite strawberry sundae in the stinkiest toilet you can ever be in. We are so lucky this product didn't get off the ground.
Reminds me of how fond my Japanese colleagues and bosses were of durians. Durians were somewhat expensive in Japan back in the early 90s (I remember seeing a supermarket as for around RM300 per fruit). You can imagine these guys who were posted to FMM then.
One of the newer arrivals was in a cab heading home when he saw a durian seller by the roadside, and he asked the cab driver to stop so he could buy some. He got down and pointed to a stack (they're stacked up like a pyramid, 4 fruits a stack, asked how much and was told RM15. He then grabbed the topmost fruit and went home. I guess it was still relatively cheap.
Not only that but there was the director of finance K~san — everyone was somewhat fearful of him — very strict guy. One day we went to a meeting somewhere near FRIM, and on our way back to Shah Alam, he actually asked the company driver to stop by the roadside so he could eat durians.
Coming back to K~san, his staff would wait for him to go home everyday before they'd dare leave the office. And that would generally be 8pm (10pm at month ends). What they, and most staff didn't know however, was that K~san would be in the office at 6.45am sharp (office hours was 8am to 5pm).
But I digress (again, it seems). Needless to say, a cucumber doesn't stand much chance of surviving getting caught in a durian fight.