Act 1, Scene 5: Inconvenience

Was driving home today at about 9 plus when I saw a group of kids playing soccer at this court.

I like watching kids play. Anything. There's just this innocence and self-belief that they have when they're so caught up in what they do that everything else seems so distant. Sometimes if you catch me sitting at a bench, just sitting, you'll know what I'm doing.

I find it such a wonder to think that every child will one day have to grow up and lose that innocence and sense of imagination. I remember when I was a kid, I used to have very few friends. I used to wander around the estate and find interesting things to do and watch when I was younger. No, I didn't have an imaginary friend. But I used alot of my imagination to make my own fun.

I developed a fear and mistrust for strangers early on in life. I still remember the incident vividly. I was about four and my mum had just bought me a new truck for me to play with. It was a dump truck and I badly wanted to try it out at the playground carting sand and stuff. And I was happily playing with it and just being by myself while my mum watched from afar. My sister came up and asked if I wanted to join her and a few other friends to play catch and I didn't want to miss out so I did what a naive young kid would have done; I dug a small hole and buried my truck in it so that I didn't have to go over to my mum. And then I ran off to play catch. After about 5 minutes, I realised this slightly older kid just hanging around the place I had buried my truck. He looked suspicious but what did a four year old kid know right? Anyway, he took my truck and I actually caught him taking it. And I gave chase but he was about ten and pretty soon got away. I remembered bawling my eyes out cos I was so scared I'd get scolded for losing a new toy. And till today, I have a great fear of losing things. Not so much scared of being scolded anymore, but to lose something of value to me.

I had a pretty carefree childhood, I must say. And alot of the things I like and the way I think was shaped by the things I did and the things I saw when I was younger. I like being alone due to my childhood spent playing by myself. I love animals which came about when the only friends I could find were cats.

On Sunday, my mum, sister and me had our lunch at Eatzi. Wasn't that great this time around. Anyway, as we were finishing up, this family walked in and to put it in a nice way, they had a bunch of boisterous kids. And my sister and I asked my mum how we were like as kids. And I remembered that I used to be very independent when I was younger. How independent?

Well, I grew up in Bukit Batok West. My first house was Blk 130. It's near the polyclinic. Anyway, my Kindergarten was near the Doulat shop in the neighbourhood centre. And to get there from my block, you had to cross this 5 lane road. I remembered how I used to get impatient when my mum was supposed to fetch me (cos she fell asleep or got back late from work). So I used to go home by myself. I would wait till all the other children had gone home, then tell my teacher that I was supposed to wait for my mum at the end of the block, happily wave goodbye and cross the road to get back. From what I know, I was the only five year old who could do that. Haha. But once I remembered sitting at the doorstep after another of my adventures and my mum came home crying hysterically. She had gone to the school to pick me up but when she discovered I wasn't there, she panicked and searched everywhere for me. She was so scared that something had happened to me and the moment she saw me sitting there on the doorstep, I tell you, it was like those movies, only better. The look of relief was priceless. Of course, the beating after would have garnered the movie an NC-16 rating for violence. =)

I remembered when I was younger, my family wasn't so well off. Our house was a 3-room flat and my mum worked in a factory. I used to be baby-sat by another family till I was about 4-plus. After that, my mum stayed at home and had these boxes of machine parts to be put together sent to our flat. So she usually put thousands of them together while watching tv and I used to help whenever I could. And whenever there were bad parts, I would take them and play with them. I had very few toys, which explained why I cried so much when I lost the truck. When I was five and ready for kindergarten, I loved going to school so much cos I got to do things I'd never done before. I loved drawing and colouring in books and learning to read and write. When I got home, sometimes my mum wasn't around. And the lady who baby-sat me always gave me an allowance. So I would take the 50-cents she gave me and go down to the grocery shop. And being five, I wasn't really in tuned to what I was doing. So I usually got let off at about 4 and my sister gets back from school at 6. And at 530, I would go to the shop and buy an ice-cream. And I would hold the ice-cream in my hand til 630 til she got back so I could give it to her. Needless to say, it would have melted by then but I never once threw it away. Of course it was one of those ice creams in a cup so melting wasn't too much of a problem.

I moved to Choa Chu Kang when I was 6. But its late now and that's another story for another time. Hope you enjoyed this one. =)