Today, I Want To Be A Baker

He knew he should have stayed in bed that morning.

He gets up and he stumbles into the shower and then dresses up for work. An orange vitamin pill is all his breakfast, and he drives to work, still half dazed. It is a Saturday morning on a long Easter weekend and the roads are clear. As he approaches the hospital, he notices that his tank is almost empty and he pulls into the nearby Shell station.

He pays for his petrol with his credit card but in his half awake state he pulls out the card too quickly. TRANSACTION CANCELLED. He tries the card again. CARD DECLINED. He smiles apologetically to the counter girl and pays by eftpos. 'Looks like you could do with more sleep,' she laughs.

And So It Begins

No sooner had he hit the department, waiting for handover when an overhead announcement is made. 'Level 2 trauma, Resus 2, Emergency Department.' He pokes his nose into the cubicle and sees that his boss is already there with another morning registrar and some lingering night staff.

The patient is a young gentleman who had been T-boned by a car on the highway when he was pulling out. He was in a neck collar and the consultant was moving an ultrasound over his tummy to see if there was any internal bleeding.

The boss quickly confirms no bleeding, and tells the doctor to take over from there while he runs handover. The doctor quickly checks the patient over, and confirms that he is stable before getting bloods from him. The nurse hands him a syringeful of blood which he proceeds to fill the tubes with. He is still waking up, and pulls the plunger a little too eagerly, which disconnects from the syringe. The blood goes everywhere onto the trolley.

He lets out a curse and somehow manages to salvage some enough for all the tubes. The nurse with him is a friend, and kindly cleans up the mess without telling him off. The blood is all over the trolley, and had made its way into the trolley, staining the packages holding the cannulas with blood. She disposes of the contaminated packages and cleans up the trolley.

After The Blood Bath

The ambulance warning system beeps through. A young guy was coming in, who was found by bystanders to be running down the streets half naked, screaming his head off before collapsing into a heap. The department prepares itself for the arrival of the patient, and he is soon wheeled through. He is in a drug daze, and barely rousable. His pinpoint pupils suggest that opioids may have been involved.

They give him some reversal for the opioids but he does not wake. His level of respiratory depression means that they need to put a tube down his throat to protect his airway while waiting for whatever drugs he had taken to naturally work its way out of his body.

You comfortable to do the tube? his boss asks.

His mind says no.

Yup, he says.

They get everything ready for the intubation. The patient was going to be a difficult one. Short neck, retracted jawline, overriding teeth. The patient is put into an induced coma. The intensive care team arrives, and there is suddenly an audience of about ten people.

Have a look now, his boss says.

The doctor brings the laryngoscope into the mouth of the patient. He attempts to find the patient's vocal cords, but is having a little trouble finding it. Pull back, says the intensive care consultant. Take your time, says his boss. 

He sees the tip of the vocal cords but couldn't get it to lift. Nope, not seeing it, he says, his hands shaking with the weight of the laryngoscope blade.

The boss steps in and takes over. A few experienced maneuvers with the laryngoscope and suddenly the tube is down the throat, and the chest rises and falls as he bags the patient.

You just needed your blade to be more secure, the boss tells him gently in front of his audience. The doctor knows he is still learning and will keep getting better at this, but couldn't help feeling deflated for not getting this tube.

******************************************

The day passes on with a few more dramas, a sixty year old man who had collapsed out the front triage after having a huge vomit of blood and a few more overdoses and road accidents customary to the long weekend. Among them all were the minor irritations of the arguments with the radiology registrar about getting scans, trying to convince sick patients wanting to self-discharge that they needed to stay, and trying to juggle all the patients under his care and remember what he needed to do for who next.

He is due to leave at six that evening. A new patient was coming in after an overdose. He was drowsy and combative, and he was huge.

Two policemen and  another two ambulance crew were in attendance, as the patient was struggling in his half drugged state, potentially a threat to his own safety and that of others.  He had written a clear suicide note that evening and had taken eighty of his antipsychotic medications wanting to end his life.

They put him into a resuscitation cubicle and strap his arms and feet down so that he doesn't hurt himself. His evening boss walks in and decides, We need to tube him.

The doctor tries to find a vein to put a cannula into but has little luck. Everything he touched that day was turning to whatever the opposite of gold was.

His colleague finds a vein on the other arm, and they place the patient into an induced coma. Another colleague, a registrar slightly junior to him manages to intubate the patient successfully, and the doctor watches with a mixed sense of pride and a tinge of envy.

The Opposite Of Gold

The patient is prepared for intensive care. A catheter is put in to measure his urine output and his evening boss puts him in charge of putting in the nasogastric tube - a tube that goes into the patient's stomach in order to drain out any secretions and prevent it from going into his lungs.

The doctor struggles with the nasogastric tube. It goes down a distance but not as smoothly as he would like. You sure you in the stomach? his evening consultant says with a querying smile.

Well, it's gone in a distance... the doctor says, but he knew that the resistance he had felt with the nasogastric tube going down was not a reassuring sign.

They try and check if they are in the stomach. They take a huge syringe and try to aspirate out some stomach content. Nothing. They try and blow in some air while a nurse listened for sounds in the stomach. Nothing.

Well, an experienced nurse offered, we can check if it's bubbling. It was old school but it sounded like a plan. They brought a kidney dish of water and place the other end of the nasogastric tube into it to see if it would bubble, suggesting that it is in the lung.

It does not bubble.

Still not convinced, the evening consultant calls for an X-ray which would show them for sure the position of the nasogastric tube.

The X-ray returns. The nasogastric tube... is sitting in the right lung. Somehow it had made its way past the ventilation tube straight into the right lung. See? said the consultant, smiling. Told you it wasn't in the stomach!

They pull out the misplaced nasogastric tube and the consultant has a go at putting it in. He struggles as well, and gives up after a few attempts.

Let's get an art line in, he says. They try to get a needle into the patient's radial arteries to see what his blood pressure is doing. The doctor can feel a good pulse on the left wrist and has a go at it, but misses despite several attempts.

His consultant tries on the other wrist and misses as well. All this time the emergency department is still running and getting busier behind the curtains.

This is not a good day for lines, his consultant says, looking a little deflated himself. I'm going to have to come back and try a little later. I've got a department to manage. 

He walks away and leaves the doctor to himself, whose bleary eyes looked up at the fuzzy numbers reading 7:45 pm, one hour and forty five minutes after he was supposed to have finished, and sighs while he stubbornly tried to find an artery on the patient's right wrist to put a needle into.

Another senior registrar walks in after he has had a few more attempts. H has told me to come in here and see if I can help you with this art line, she says. She puts on a pair of sterile gloves, feels for a pulse, inserts the needle and suddenly there is a satisfying gush of blood into the needle. She effortlessly threads the needle, secures the line and attaches the monitoring.

Guess he likes girls more, she smiles.

The doctor stands there and smiles in return, shaking his head a little. He cannot believe how easy she made that look, but was more relieved that the line was finally in.

She waltzes out of the room and leaves the doctor and the two nurses who are bustling around the resuscitation cubicle getting all paperwork sorted out, preparing the equipment to move the patient into intensive care.

The Road Not Taken

The doctor leans against the table in the cubicle, and stares blankly into space for awhile. His stomach rumbles as he finally remembers he hadn't eaten all day.

He smiles to himself and to a day that has defeated him, and he says aloud, to no one in particular, Today, I want to be a baker.

The nurses, who have worked with him so long that they were more like friends, let out a laugh in agreement as they knew exactly how he felt about the day he was having.

He leaves the department with a sigh. He will take the long drive home and he will tell his loving partner about the unbelievably long and crap day he's had, and then he will sleep, because tomorrow he must return.

*******************************************

He thinks about his previous Emergency Department director, who was like a mother to him in his workplace, and who was  instrumental in him choosing Emergency Medicine as a specialty.

He remembers her hand on his shoulder after another particularly difficult day like today, and her voice still rings clearly in his ears - Just remember, you're gonna good days and bad days, young Dr. Heng, so don't take it too personally, all right? Press on, because you are a good doctor and don't let it get to you. 

Tomorrow he will be better.

 

I've Got A Proposal To Make.

I have had the ring for eight months now.

She organised my surprise 30th birthday party and I was kicking myself that I didn't have the ring to counter-surprise her. It was there where I asked a friend if she would accompany me to buy the ring.

I have had the ring for eight months now.

I was thinking about how to propose to her. I toyed with the idea of skywriting, but luckily a friend talked me out of it. What about putting it up on a billboard just like the Malaysian guy did? But I felt that was just a little toopublic.

On and on the thoughts streamed about how I was going to ask Karen to marry me, and finally the words 'Say Yes' popped into my head.

How about a video proposal, and getting our friends and family on board? My heart raced with the thought of the one idea that could finally work, and so the wheels started churning.

This is the beginning of what I call the 'scheming for good.' This was the two months spent in secret e-mails to family and friends asking them if they would take part in this project. Two months of private browsing in the Firefox windows, pretending to be hard at work with Karen sitting unwittingly opposite me, suppressing the smiles inside with every new picture that came along.

And then the last few days of telling untruths about being at study groups with friends or with my brother when I was actually shooting my photos for the video, and going over to a friend's house to put the video together, which she kindly and patiently did.

This is what two and a half months of planning culminated in:

That's all it is. Me making a stupid face!


Thank you to all who have helped out in this video with your photos, encouragement and love. The road ahead is exciting and scary all at once, and we need your continued love and prayers as we walk down the aisle towards the rest of our lives together.

P.S. She posted a response as well! She never ceases to amaze me, this woman!




Random Memories: Thirteen Years Old

It was a huge centerpage in our local newspaper, The Star. It was the story of this loving couple who were in the dance ministry at their church and talked about how he proposed to her in a really special manner.

They were walking in the KLCC park one evening, when he led her to a bridge. Six friends, all dressed as mimes were standing along the bridge, and soft music started playing in the background. All of them were holding plates, with napkins sitting over them.

A card read on the first plate reads 'I love you because...' she uncovers the napkin '... of your smile that could light a small city.' The mime starts to smile widely and invisible light bulbs were going off everywhere.

She turns to her boyfriend and smiles, his plan becoming apparent.

'I love you because...' the second plate read as she pulled away the napkin. '... you laugh at my jokes even when they are not funny.' The mime doubles over in silent laughter at a bad joke that you couldn't hear.

'...your fried rice makes the hawkers jealous.'
'... you love my family, and my dog.'
'... of your beauty and grace when you dance.'

The mimes cooked, petted invisible dogs and twirled continuously as she came to the final dish.

This napkin was covering an object.

The last card read - 'But most of all, I love you because...'

The mime is motionless. She pulls away at the napkin and gasps.

It is a mirror.

'...of who you are.' She is surprised by her tears as she feels him tap her on the shoulder. She turns around to find him on bended knee with the open box containing the ring that would join her to him for the rest of their lives.

Through her tears, she says yes.

Something in my thirteen year old heart wanted so badly to one day have a special wedding proposal of my own.

I Want To Run Through The Halls of My Primary School

Coming out from an evening shift yesterday, I walked in the cold dark night towards my car. I was trying to think warm thoughts (hot cocoa, a blazing campfire, a thick padded jacket, a refrigerator, a polar bear, ice cream, air-conditioning, the North pole, ... thinkwarmthoughtsthinkwarmthoughts) and bravely walk to my car, when my shrunken manhood decided to run. like. hell. for the car.

And so I ran - the wind against my face, my heart pumping in my ears, my stethoscope swinging threateningly close to my jaw and my keys jangling in my work trousers. I couldn't help but smile as I finally reached my car, feeling as exhilarated as a five year old who had won first prize in the egg-and-spoon race in his kindergarten.

It was times like these which reminded me to love my knees while I still have them. I think about how one day at sixty, when my back will betray me and my knees will be nothing but a distant beautiful memory, I will surely miss them dearly.

Random Memories: Eight Years Old

I was never very athletic. I couldn't sprint, I couldn't jump, my shot putt was more like a short putt. I couldn't kick a ball straight to save my life, and always return the shuttlecock straight into the net. My favourite swimming style was kicking your feet randomly while holding the edges of the pool, or drowning. Basketball was more like under-the-basketball.

And so every little victory counts. I had won a silver medal once when I was eight during my school's Sports Day. I remember wearing the medal proudly around my neck as my little feet staggered up the bus, the medal gleaming as it swung across my tummy.

Hey Everyone! Look at me! Mr. Second Place in the Egg-In-The-Spoon Race.

I walked past two boys, one from St John's, and the other one from a Chinese school.

Oi! Give us a look! the bespectacled Chinese boy reached for my medal as I stood before him, beaming proudly.

Wow! Second place in the egg-and-spoon race! Not bad ah! he seemed genuinely happy for me.

The 13-year-old St. John boy came up and then looked at the inscription on the back. Cheh! his mouth sneered in disdain. It's not even a proper race. It's for primary school kids one lah!

I continued smiling but inside I was crestfallen.

Eh, okay what, their field is quite big one, you know, the Chinese boy said in my defence.

The secondary school boy turned his head away, his condescending sneer taking the shine off my highest ever achievement in sports.

The Lessons of Lorong Haji Taib: Part 3

"We're going to the police."

"What?!" said Siew Tat. "We've just been to try and tiu kai (visit prostitutes), and you want us to tell the polis that ah? Won't we be arrested or something?"

"No, they won't lah!" I started the car, gripping the steering wheel.

I sounded way more confident than I felt.

At the Balai (Station)

"Lu orang buat apa?!" ("What did you guys do?!")

The police officer stared at us with incredulity in his eyes, and started shaking his head slowly.

It was a busy Friday night. Someone was sitting in the corner with blood on his head, and someone there wanting to report an accident, and there had been a couple of stabbings that night to boot.

They had just conducted a raid as well, and the station was teeming with about fifteen illegal prostitutes, some from China, some Cambodian and some ang moh looking chicks, don't know from where. They were all squatting with their hands over their heads. I could see Jeremy and Khong Nam checking them out while Vincent and Siew Tat were with me explaining our plight to the police officer.

We felt a little stupid with our problem but the more the story went on, the louder our voices became as more and more we felt wronged.

Another police officer came out.

Apa bising bising ini? (What's all this commotion here?) he demanded.

Oh, sarjan budak semua ni (Oh Sergeant, these kids)... and he explained our plight.

The sergeant turned to us, his face indecipherable.

Hish! Bodoh betullah kamu ni! Kalau mau main pergilah hotel, hah! Cari gadis gadis macam ini lah best! Kenapa pergi Lorong Haji Taib?  (Hish! You're a bunch of idiots, you know that? If you're looking for a little fun, go to a hotel, and look for hookers like these lah! Why the hell did you go to Lorong Haji Taib for?) his eyes widened, as he pointed to the prostitutes behind us.


We were initially shocked at his outburst and then looked a little sheepish, and his glare soon softened after his little diatribe.

Okey, apa kamu hilang? (Now, what did you lose?)

Half an Hour Later 

We are sitting at the sargeant's office. He had disappeared somewhere 'to make a few phone calls.'

All five of us turn as he walks into the room.

"Handfon yang kamu hilang tu, apa model dia? Warna apa?" (What was the colour and the make of your missing handphones?)

One black Samsung, flip phone. One Silver Nokia.

Like a magician he pulls both the phones out of his pockets. Our jaws dropped as we quickly reached for our phones, thankful beyond words.

Duit kamu hilang berapa? And how much money?

Dua ratus tuan. Two hundred ringgit, sir.

Nah, kita hanya recover seratus. Like a dubious trickster he only hands us a hundred ringgit, but we were just happy to be seeing any of it back, to be honest.

We left his room, our heads bobbing in profuse thanks, as he left us with these parting words.

Ingat, okey, lain kali, pergi hotel cari pelacur. Remember to only use the hotels for prostitutes next time, you hear me?

We smiled weakly as Vincent lead the team to get the hell out of there. We walked past the cowering prostitutes again.

"Jeremy, you hamsup (dirty) bastard! Stop looking at them already lah! You've already got us into trouble once tonight!"

"Okay, who wants to go to mamak?"

"Where ah?"

"How about Lorong Haji Taib?!"

"Shut up lah, you idiot!" we laughed.

The Lessons Of Lorong Haji Taib: Part 2

Pap! Pap! Pap! 

The aunties obviously had no idea what a massage was. What we got instead was a modified slapping of our backs. 

There was a few times she came dangerously close to my ass, but I manged to bump her hands away just in time.

After ten minutes, I just wanted to get the hell out of there - 'Eh, cukuplah, cukuplah. Kita mau pergi dah.' (Enough, enough, we want to go already.)


Tak bulih. Tak bulih. Bayar tiga puluh minit musti mau habis semua. (Cannot, cannot. You paid for thirty minutes).

It's hard negotiating when you're lying in bed, almost naked, with your backs to two Indian aunties.

We heard a sound in the room behind us, but couldn't turn to see. A few minutes later, we could hear a motorcycle being started in the distance... Pap! Pap! Pap! The Indian aunties kept up with their backslapping.

This massage was far from relaxing. It felt more like being caned. For being hamsup.

Now Where Did I Put It?

Thirty agonising minutes which felt like forever later, I pulled my face from the stained mattress, and Jeremy and I hurried to the cupboard. As I put on my pants, there was a silence where the jingle of car keys should have been. Jeremy also noticed that his handphone was no longer in his jeans' pockets.

'Eh, where the hell's my car key?' I asked Jeremy.

'I don't know. Where's my handphone?' He rummaged a little more in the empty cupboard which had nothing more than a few pieces of torn newspapers inside.

'Eh, maybe we left it with the three downstairs before we came up, issit?'

'I don't know lah... We go and ask them lah.'

We left without thanking our service provider aunties, and went down to our waiting friends.

'So how was the ma-?'

'Eh, did I give my car keys to you guys ah?'

'No!'

'No!'

'No what - you didn't give us anything - you went straight up, remember?!'

'Eh, shit lah. I'm damn angry already. These fuckers have gone too far.'

I turned around, with a newfound anger. They have screwed us enough tonight. They're not getting the car.

'OI! Come out here uncle!'

The Indian uncle suddenly melted out of the darkness into the scant light.

'What?' he growled.

I was too pissed off to be scared. 'Give me back my car key! You guys have taken our money tonight - enough already lah! Give me back my fucking car key! I call the police then you know!'

'What? You think you shout I scared ah? You want - you go and call the polis lah! But before you start accusing accusing all... make sure you check the cupboard properly first!'

'I didn't leave it in the cupboard! I checked already before coming down!'

'Are you sure? You go and double check again first!'

I stormed up the stairs, into the room. The two aunties had magically disappeared, and I slammed open the cupboard door, fuming to see -

- my car key.

I took the key and went down.

'Where's my friend's handphone?' I yelled.

'Eh, how the hell am I supposed to know? How I know your friend even bring his handphone inside?!'

Jeremy was looking at me, his eyes pleading for me to forget about it and to just get the hell out of here. 'Eh, don't worry. It's a handphone only lah...'

The gate was unlocked, and the five of us made our way out past the three Indian men. The night was cool with a light breeze; still and uninterested as if nothing terrifying had happened to us at all for the past hour. It took us another ten minutes to walk back to my Dad's

Car

I walked around the car and inspected it from the outside, making sure that everything was okay. Scratch marks - none. Wheels - all there. Hubcaps - also all there.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I pressed the central locking button and the knobs came up, and the lights flashed.

We all got into the car and opened up the glove compartment.

Phewf! All our wallets were still there.

We each took our own wallets, and then noticed that the other handphone was missing. Shit! We opened our wallets - all our cash had been taken. Fuck!

We sat in the car, angry and yet too scared to confront the three men dividing up our money and handphones somewhere in the shophouse at the end of the alleyway somewhere in Lorong Haji Taib.

"ARRRGH!" I banged my steering wheel, impotent. When I looked up, I saw my friends in the streetlights streaming through the car windows. There was an air of defeat, regret and anger mixed in all their faces.

"So, how now?"

The Lessons of Lorong Haji Taib: Part 1

You want a story? I've got a story for you.

There were five of us - Vincent, Jeremy, Siew Tat, Khong Nam and myself.

We were eighteen then, bored and restless one night. Let's go clubbing, said Siew Tat.By the time we got to the clubs, it was already about three a.m., and they were closing for the night. Sien ah.

We were sitting in my car, wondering what to do next when Jeremy pipped up- 'Hey, what about we go and see Lorong Haji Taib?'

Five teenage boys. Whose ears perked up at the mention of Lorong Haji Taib - a place only whispered or laughed about in school in hamsup (lewd) conversations about sensual massages, transvestites and streetwalkers.

We swallowed hard. Our goosebumps raised at the thought of doing something so dangerous, our hearts raced and our penises throbbed at the thought of the forbidden fruit.

I looked around at the other four boys. Loud braggers who had always described how we would 'do' it with this or that girl, one day - the usual big talk for five virgin boys. Always.

After a few wrong turns, I finally got us there in my Dad's car. We did the smart thing and parked our car far, far away from the actual street itself. Being the cautious Malaysians about to wander into a potentially dangerous situation, we took out all our wallets and the ones who had handphones bundled them all into the glove compartment, although Jeremy brought his, just in case.

Fifty ringgits in each of our pockets, with two hundred sitting safely in the car. Steering wheel lock - on. Car alarm - on.

Set.

We looked at each other, guilt flashing in our eyes briefly before we broke out into smiles and headed off into the night in search of adventure.

Lorong Haji Taib 

was everything we imagined. The shops below had their metal shutters drawn for the night, but the stairs leading up to the second and third floors of the old shophouses were lit with cheap fluorescent lights, drawing customers like moths to the many prostitutes/transvestites standing at the entrances below.

We motioned each other to the single cars parked with their brake lights on in the distance, their windows open, the driver haggling a price with the hooker leaning against his window.

We sniggered. We swallowed harder.

'Oi, brudder!' we suddenly heard a call to our right. "You want massage ah?"

We stopped and turned to look at the Indian man calling out to us.

"You want massage?" he repeated.

We hesitated. "Er no lah, uncle, thanks very much." I brought up my hand and weakly smiled my declination.

"We got all kinds of girls... You don't have to try. Just see first lah... Can choose anyone."

I didn't like the look of the seedy Indian man, and quickly glanced at Siew Tat, Vincent and Khong Nam, motioning to them to keep walking. When I turned around, I saw Jeremy's back, following that man into an alley.

Ah, crap.

"Eh, shit lah... Jeremy!"

Jeremy briefly turned, his big head of hair covering his chubby, enthiusiastic "Come on, guys, this is our chance!" face. I ran after him, and the rest of them ambled along unsurely towards the alleyway.

It was a really narrow and dimly lit alley between the shops, and we walked past these two Indian aunties who looked briefly up from their newspapers at us. I could have sworn I saw them shaking their heads. 

I caught up to Jeremy, and both him and I followed the man into this dingy shophouse. There was a solitary lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and nothing else. No furniture. Nothing else. Not a single damned thing. This was bad news.

We suddenly heard the steel shuttered gate slam behind us. And then the uncle locked it. This was really bad news.

Two other Indian men suddenly appeared, and all our initial excitement was now replaced with a more recognisable emotion - fear. Their eyes were redshot from the mix of toddy and whatever drugs they had been taking, and my knees suddenly went weak with the very real thought that we could get hurt tonight, or worse.

"So kamu mahu massage ah? (So you want massage ah?)" one of them smiled leeringly at us, his features accentuated in the scant light offered by the bulb.

"Er... No lah, brudder. I, erm... we're actually quite tired already... I think we're going to go lah.... No need massage already."

"Masuk sini, mesti mahu massage. (Come in here, must massage)" He had lost his smile, and I was about to lose my continence.

"N--n--no lah, brudder," I stammered. "I'm really quite tired. Anyway, my three friends are waiting outside..."

The Indian uncle who had lured us in motioned to the other drug-addled sidekick, and within a minute, we were joined by Khong Nam, Vincent and Siew Tat. The steel gate slammed shut sickeningly again, and I looked at the three of them apologetically.

All three picked up the fear in both our eyes, and it was contagious - their nostrils started flaring and they started breathing shallower as well.Our fight-or-flight response kicked in, and we were ready to take our chances with these three Indian men. Number-wise we were on top, but if you compared our sizes, despite being five on three, I would say, we were pretty even.

"So, who wants the massage?" the uncle growled, interrupting the virtual fight that we were taking on in our heads. 

Our pupils dilated, our heads almost shook in unison.

"Eh, uncle never mind lah. We give you money. Forget about the massage."

"Eh. Fuck you! You come in already. You must have massage. I don't care."

I looked at my friends, and felt responsible for getting them into this situation. My mind worked overtime. Maybe it wasn't time for mortal combat. Maybe it was time for diplomacy.

"Eh uncle, okaylah, okaylah. Just me and my friend here. We'll go for the massage."

I pulled Jeremy with me and we turned around to look at the rest briefly before the uncle led us to

The Second Floor

Imagine two beds side by side. Imagine two beds that've been used by many men over the years, that's never been cleaned the whole time. See the rust collecting on the steel frame, see the stains showing up by the fluorescent light above, smell the years of bodily fluids crusting on the mattress.

"Okay. Take off all your clothes. Your girls will come soon."

 "Pay first ah. Fifty ringgit."

What?!

"Each."
 
Shit lah. I knew we were being taken for a ride, but the menacing uncle had convinced me one hundred ringgit was a small price to pay compared to, oh, say, a slow painful death, our bodies never to be found  again. 

Let's get this over with, I thought. Jeremy and I quickly undressed, and we folded our clothes into the only other piece of furniture in the room - a bare cupboard at the back of the room a distance away from the bed.

We barely had time to pop ourselves down onto the rickety bed before our 'girls' arrived. You guessed it - the two Indian aunties who we had passed on the way in. I am being kind here when I say that one of them looked like she had been run over by a truck and never really recovered from it, while the other one looked like her uglier older sister.

"Okay, baring depan (Okay, lie face down)." We fearfully did as we were told as I had the strong sense of the uncle lingering outside the room.

Jeremy and I lied next to each other on the bed, almost naked. The night was turning out swell. I looked at him, and whispered,

"Hey, Jeremy? If we survive this, I'm going to kill you."

Green Thumbed

I woke up this morning after four hours' sleep and decided that I would do something that I had put off for a long time - cleaning the backyard.

The last time I remember cleaning the backyard was for my brother's 30th birthday celebrations, oh, let's say two years ago.

Okay, I am not your typical slob... I do clean the house when inspired (every few months) and I like a relatively organised space. I am not a neat freak, though - it's not like I have colour-coded my underwear (anymore) and I am happy to leave certain things unwashed in the sink until there is a critical mass (or until the leftover food on the plate starts to grow legs).

My previous housemate, Li and I took up the enormous task of cleaning the backyard two years ago. Like explorers, we took our gloves and machetes (read: meat cleaver) to the jungle that was the backyard and started pulling away at weeds and hacking away at overhanging branches. I had the added advantage that Li worked part time as a gardener in one of the local houses to supplement his student income.

Several hours later we stood over the empty courtyard, victorious once more over all that nature had to throw at us - some poor defenceless grass and a few helpless branches.

This time, however, I have had to go at cleaning up two years of accumulated mess alone. I lifted up a garbage bag of leaves that had been sitting there for some time to reveal a tiny ecosystem of earthworms and a hundred silvery wriggling things (which I thankfully did not recognise) as well. Gross.

As I pulled away at the grass and weeds with my rubber-gloved hands, the number of creepy-crawlies amplified - here a spider pregnant with eggs, there a fluttering moth, and mosquitoes everywhere.

The tree in the back had overgrown again, and I looked pensively at it after an hour or so of clearing the weeds and dead leaves below. I finally got my brother to bring the meat cleaver again, and I whispered a quick apology before hacking away at the branches.

You know that scene in ninja/kung fu movies where the hero cuts through a forest deftly with his sword and bamboos and branches fall around and behind him as he takes a stance and faces off his enemy coolly?

That was so not me.

The meat cleaver was blunt, and after hacking at the green branches for ten minutes, the branches had barely a graze. The tree shook in the wind, as if laughing at me, and saying 'Is that all you got?' before smacking me around with some of its branches.

I remember all my training in my sporadic years as a Boy Scout (Tenderfoot extraordinaire) and took to the branches but this time at a 45 degree angle and then pulling as hard as I could as the bark showed. It started to work, and soon it was me laughing at the tree, cutting off its multiple low lying limbs and clearing the pathway for the sunlight so that the weeds below could grow healthily once more.

Oops. I think I just undid a morning's worth of hard work.

Random Memories: Eight Years Old  

I remember when we were still kids, we used to have a garden outside our home in TD. We had a mango tree and a papaya one as well, with a healthy layer of grass underneath to complete the Home of The Year look.

Every few months, the grass would grow to a point where we were sent out to go and 'pluck the grass'. We would grab at it with our bare hands, throwing it into a pile in a corner, wishing all the time that we owned a goat that would eat our work away.

The reward after two hours of hard work was that you got to set the grass on fire. This was before the days of hazes and environmental consciousness and pollution. We would set a newspaper on fire at the kitchen stove and then run through the dining room, walk gingerly past the living room and then try and stuff it into the stack of grass.

I remember as kids we were entrusted with the task of blowing up the fire - we would huff and puff until our faces went blue and we staggered a little from the hyperventilation - it was then we decided fanning it with newspapers were the smarter option.

I would laugh gleefully as the flames finally consumed the grass, sending puffs of smoke and dancing pieces of charred newspaper up into the air. All that was left in the end was a mound of ashes which we used to fertilise the trees, and the... grass and... weeds again.

Oops. I think I just undid two hours worth of hard work.

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.