A New Year. A New Resolution.

Happy 2011 to all my friends, family and readers, who have given up reading this blog entirely for the sole reason that they have married and remarried, have had four babies and moved into nursing homes waiting for me to put up another post since my last one!

Haha! Indeed, this blog has been forsaken for the far quicker gratification of the mistress that is Facebook. Add to that the iPad and hanging out at Karen's and there you have my year in a nutshell. 

But no longer. This will be a year of returning to my first love - of writing, and telling stories.  Terribly.

Random Memories: Nine Years Old

Karen and I were walking along Box Hill aka Asian Central after dinner yesterday, and out of curiosity, we strolled into what looked like a candy and snack shop.

The shop itself was a curiosity - it sold your average snacks and drinks, but then there were display cabinets displaying soft toys (understandable) and bras (what the?!) for sale.

We sauntered around the shop a bit, picking snacks at leisure. As we were checking out, my vision strayed onto these little square boxes sitting enticingly along the counter, and my eyes suddenly lit up with nostalgic recognition!

These bubble gum boxes were the stuff of my childhood - sold everywhere, from supermarket counters to the old grandfather-vendor who used to sit outside my primary school.

They were sold for the measly price of 10 sen each, and brought me much happiness as a child. Four little baubles of bubble gum, bursting with fruit flavours! My favourite was the grape flavour, and so I bought a box with little hesitation.

For the mere price of 30 Australian cents I suddenly held a key to my childhood again, as I have not seen this bubble gum for a very long time.

I remember how as a child of nine, this very box of bubble gum taught me a very important life lesson - inflation.

The cost of living had gone up, and trying to keep the price of the bubble gum the same, the manufacturers had taken instead to the sneaky task of removing one bubble gum, so that only three balls of pleasure were left in the box.

I remember when I first opened the box with three gums in them. I stared blankly for awhile at the three purple balls and turned to look suspiciously at the supermarket that sold it to me.

My little mind raced to the factories where these magical bubble gums were made, and I imagined this poor Japanese auntie, tired from overwork, accidentally miscounting the bubble gum quota per box, making the life of this nine year old particularly miserable for the day.

It was only later, when my second and third boxes all had only three gums in them as well, did my mind finally compute that my nine year old life was never going to be the same again.

It was a harsh lesson for a young kid to learn, and I recounted my story to Karen, who laughed and we made a little bet on how many this box would contain.

Karen, the eternal optimist, said four, while I - all illusions broken at the tender age of nine - said three.

My fingers fumbled clumsily with the outer plastic wrapping  and I popped open the box to find - four! little bubbles of joy!

I actually let out a little laugh of disbelief, my childhood self restored once again. Sure, they cost the equivalent of 90 sen today, but even hope has not escaped the claws of inflation.

Every bite still burst with (artificially flavoured) grape flavour, and I did what my nine year old self would have done - two gums first, then wait for the flavour to run out, then one, wait for the flavour to run out, and then the last one.

It's amazing how the mouth remembers.