Unlike most others, my recollections about Children’s Day are not exactly pleasant.
The events on Saturday did nothing to correct that perception. I may have
the cutest niece ever, but my nephews are all mighty-morphing, power-puffing monsters in the making. Indeed, I nearly had a fit when they performed acrobatics and a mini version of Wrestlemania on my bed. In view of their assorted atrocities, they didn’t get any Yan Yan, but a box of yucky chocolates left over from New Year’s that was close to their sell-by date. Yes, I am a very nasty dinosaur. Heh heh. . . .
I blame my mean streak on my horrible childhood. For the record, I didn’t receive any Children’s Day gifts from my teachers because of the following reasons:
1) Not only was I not cute, I was plain fugly. My nephews had a good laugh when they went through my childhood photos on Saturday.
2) My studies sucked. I still have my primary school record book that is full of red marks, and proudly proclaims ‘Last In Class’.
3) I shitted in my pants. During pre-primary. Because I didn’t know enough English to ask ‘May I go to the toilet’ to my Indian teacher, and because I couldn’t hold it in till recess. It stank quite badly, and I wasn’t exactly popular with my classmates thereafter. I felt really sorry for the janitor, because he had to clean up after me
twice.
4) I once got into a fight with a prefect twice my size. Literally. He was approximately 60kg to my approximate 30kg. He also knew Judo, and I almost had to have dental surgery to salvage my shaky front teeth.
5) I stole milk from a classmate. If you’re as old as me, you’ll probably remember how your teachers used to bug you to order those pasteurized milk that used to come in that weird pyramid shape. I couldn’t keep up the milk subscription because I was dirt-poor, and I stole because I was hungry and greedy for artificially sweetened chocolate milk. My life of crime came to an abrupt end one morning recess when I was caught red-handed, and I was subsequently subjected to corporal punishment meted out by mummy dearest. I always have a laugh when I recall this, but it didn’t really seem that funny back then.
6) I got caned in front of the school assembly for flashing myself to my female classmates. Nay, I’m just bullshitting for this one. The caned flasher was a classmate named Philip. Don’t ask me why I still remember his name because I have no idea why either.
There was also this particular incident that I recall rather vividly. You know how kids love to bring a cake to school for celebration during birthdays, so that they can hao lian a bit and maybe get a present or two? I was no exception. I can’t recall if it was during primary one or two, but I wanted desperately to bring a birthday cake of my own to school too.
Unfortunately, my family was really, really dirt poor. I spent a long time pondering how to broach the subject to my mum before finally deciding on this one:
Me: Can I have a birthday cake to bring to school tomorrow please?
Mum: (Thought about it for a while) Ok.
When I woke up the next morning, I had a
pandan cake ready for school.
Although my mum bought an extra large one, it wasn’t really enough for everybody. But I was happy beyond words nonetheless. My teachers also got me this color pencil set as a present, and that was when I cried really badly in class.
That could have been the happiest day in my primary school life, until I heard one classmate commenting that I didn’t deserve the color pencils because I only brought a $1 pandan cake from the wet market.
I felt so ashamed.
And I felt damn pissed too. So I stole his chocolate milk for weeks. He must have been as vindictive as me because he almost broke my two front teeth a few years later. On hindsight, it was probably a good thing we were never friends, because I might just have joined him in flashing and get caned together.
I love my childhood recollections.
Signing off, Barneysaurus
