Free gift … the ultimate bait to get more customers. That’s what I got when I bought 4 movie tickets on Friday. Free gifts. Nice isn’t it ? But no. Instead of feeling nice, the gift that I’ve got that night confuses me. Instead of getting nice free gifts like maybe an awesome pen, mobile phone strap or perhaps a nail clipper … I got 2 bars of soap. Soap ! Sabun !

Now, who in his right mind would have thought of giving out free soaps in cinema ? Well, maybe some desperate act of pushing out uncleared stocks perhaps. Ok, I might dig that. But then, it was not an ordinary soap that I’ve got there. The soap smelled kooky. I took a whiff at the soap … it smelled something like a canned fruit cocktail.

And when I took a more careful look at the soap wrapper, I saw a very disturbing picture of somekind of fruit. “Rambutan ! Oh my god !” Emily exclaimed hysterically. But no, it wasn’t rambutan. It’s LYCHEE ! A lychee scented soap ! (if you don’t know what a lychee is ..nevermind)

Why would anyone waste their money developing a LYCHEE SCENTED soap !? I mean, aren’t soaps suppose to smell nice .. so that when we finished cleaning our body with it, we wouldn’t reek of our own sweat and perspiration ? Now imagine that someone were to wash him/herself with a lychee scented soap and his/her friends complimented “Oooh … u smelled so … lychee ?” Add a bye behind the word if you like. Ridiculous .. isn’t it ?

Damn, it’s really a bad thing when innovation goes wrong. What next ? A belacan scented soap ? langsat scented soap ? I mean, why can’t they stick to old traditional nice flowery scents ? What’s wrong with it ?

And also, I never failed to notice is that we have “menthol” in almost all our daily products. People seems to like it a lot. Well, I like it too .. but only on certain products like toothpaste or maybe our good old hair shampoo…. until one day … I discovered that menthols had already started to invade our homes like housewives did.

It happened when I was scrubbing myself with a bottle free gift body shampoo as usual in the shower … and suddenly, I had the urge to defecate. I spent a good 1 minute over on the toilet bowl with unrinsed soap still all over my body … crapping my intestines out.

Then, I started to experience this ‘cool’ sensation down under my barn there … which became briskier as the time passes by… as if someone had poured ‘minyak cap kapak’ down there. Then, the cool feeling started to spread across my gooch into the chocolate cream dispenser orifice…. that I swear it made my shit lose it’s original distinctive fecal characteristics.

I had to actually wash off the soap immediately to rid of that sensation when it became ‘too cool to bear’. Later only I managed to find out that the body shampoo is actually mentholated.

So, basically, everyone had to accept the fact, that sooner in future, everything will be mentholated. We’re gonna have menthol on condoms, doctor’s anal examination gloves or even your broadband modem… just anything that you can imagine. And they probably will smell of lychee as well.

Yesterday, I accompanied Emily to a beauty parlor. She needed to enquire about a skin care product that she had just bought lately. Well, needless to say, it was almost a suicide mission for me — for I failed to notice the dangers that spelunks the cursed place.

Alright, Emily started to enquire away while I was like sitting around to check some of the girls out .. u know .. I had that kind of primitive thinking that beauticians are probably beautiful themselves. (it was my first time stepping my foot in these ladies slaughterhouse). But boy, I was so fucking wrong. Instead of seeing proportional looking humans, I saw a bunch of mirror wrecking banshees - with their face padded with so much cosmetics that it would even cover up a monsoon drain.

Then, one of them, who was the one attending to Emily’s request .. started to ask me - “Have I seen you before ? You looked familiar ..” The moment I hear those words, I concluded the following :

She was stupid.– Thousands of people may have seen me before. How do I fucking know if she’s one of them ? Unless I have a referral script running inside my brain that allows me to register whoever that has gazed into my effervescent face before.

I already knew where the attempted conversation was heading. It was towards the direction of my wallet. Credit card department. She then exclaimed further :

“I sio kong u one of our customer maa. Interested in any treatment ?” [alright, she doesn't speak English that well.]

I gave her that “excuse me please ?” look before replying her -

“In case you failed to notice - I’m a guy. We don’t wash our face with a few thousand types of chemicals.”
“Well, guys have to care for their face too maa … rie ? ”
“I’m sure they do. I washes my face with soap.. and I think it’s good enough”
“No no, soap won’t be able to remove brackheads .. pimpess … bla bla bla..have to use this that .. ”

I managed to only grasp the first 2 jargons that came out from her mouth. Brackheads and pimpess … which that alone I had to decipher through my ample knowledge of hokkien-accented English to know that she meant — Blackheads and Pimples. I gave up after that.

I started to get panic when she began to preach me about face care. The situation was as bad as meeting a bunch of naked transvestite religious bigots who wanted me to join their cause. The difference was — I’m right inside their den .. and did that with a full conscious mind. *smacks head repeatedly*

I then scurried straight to the door and bail off immediately, leaving Emily behind. As I tried to whip out my car keys, I inadvertently saw those ladies came out running with a bunch of their cronies … armed with knives and ropes. Panic, I tripped upon a piece of protruded rock and fell onto the ground. With that disadvantage in place, there was no way for me to escape but to submit to their malicious intentions. I was then brought deep into their den and was repeatedly sexually ravaged off my innocence …

Alright, I was kidding about the last part. I bail off the place leaving Emily behind alright, which she later caught up with me outside. The sexual assault part didn’t actually happened. But then, I reckoned if I didn’t bail off the place right at that time, it probably would have really happened.

Who knows what might lurks inside the cynical & pernicious mind of a beautician ?

As we all have known, men are always fascinated by women’s body. For girls - having a great looking set of hardwares and body shape is as good as having their self esteem up high. It bestow them the attention … social status … confidence … and unlimited advantages that anyone would hope for. Ok, enough craps. U get the idea. If u don’t… go find a nearest toilet bowl, put your head into it … and flush.

Unfortunately, not all girls are lucky to be blessed with a great body. Kotex is one of them. Kotex’s a girl who works in my company’s logistic department. U see, when Kotex stands up straight … and lean herself against a broom closet, practically no one could differentiate her from a broomstick.

She was downright meager and so “Karen Carpenter”. Airport. Flat rear. Virtually no asset at all. Well, her face looks ok .. so, nobody actually had any second opinion about her. Just another girl next door.

But she got some problem with that. It seemed that she couldn’t accept the fact that she’s so barren. So, she worked out a solution herself. She ‘acted’ as if she had the assets - if u get what i mean. How ? She did it by deliberately changing her posture.

U see, when a girl tilted her ass backwards and her upper body front-wards … it will actually create an optical illusion or trick to the eyes of men. It makes her assets looked more obvious and noticeable … thus ‘bigger’. It’s a well known ingenious deception.

This is the trick used by Kotex to fool the blokes in my company. She would tilt her posture in such a way that it looked like she had an “S” shaped body. Her boobs located far at the front … and her butt way behind. Her despicable acts are especially evident whenever any male species are around.

Her posture was so downright wrong - that it actually reminded me of the advice that my physiotherapist gave me. Did anyone knew that by having a wrong posture, it could lead to many kind of diseases and health problems ? Namely - back ache, arthritis, osteoporosis, bronchitis, halitosis, tuberculosis, syphilis…. just.. fuck … anything that ends with -is. Alright, that might not be entirely correct … coz I wasn’t really paying attention to my physiotherapist … but the main point is, it could lead to health problems.

Her “S” posture was so badly maintained, that she actually had to walk faster … to prevent from toppling over to the front falling flat on her face. By right, if she wanted to maintain that “S” posture, she would need to bob her head (like a pigeon) while walking. *The science behind why pigeons bobbed their head while walking — their leg and posterior was situated too far behind from it’s head .. that it actually had to bob it’s head to maintain the balance while walking.

But she didn’t. She’s willing to risk her health to look artificially great.

I mean … isn’t she kinda foolish to risk her own health like that …just for the sake of getting some attention from men ? She could have done it the wild way … like running naked across the office. Or the legitimate way - resort to boob enlargement programmes … cheaper, to use thickly padded bra. Or maybe even cheaper, use kleenex to stuff it inside her undergarments. Period.

Such are the mentality of women nowadays. *shakes head.

Circa 1991. I was practicing riding a motorcycle with my buddy - Wai. When I say practicing, it is understandable that we’re actually learning how to rear up and take a sandy corner on a pair of cheap stock tyres. Ok, back to the story.

After we had our sufficient dose of delivering some adventurous stunts at a nearby clearing, we decided to return to our base (our homes). Both of us were riding side by side .. without helmets… doing about 60 kph at a relatively small road. We then reached to an elevated section of the road where we lose visibility of anything that approaches beyond it. But because the road was a seldom traveled one, we weren’t really expecting anything behind that blind spot.

It appears that we’re wrong. There’s a fucking kid riding his cheap bicycle right in the middle of the road. Alright, he wasn’t even riding it .. he was PUSHING it. And because both us watched plenty of movies, we decided to be heroes that day. Instead of ramming our motorcycles into that mongoloid kid, we veered our motorcycles off road to avert the him.

Wai to the left and myself to the right. Wai landed himself into a drain … while I landed on a grassy plain full of obscured rocks. I remembered myself flung out from the motorcycle and landed flat on the ground - almost hitting a rock as big as The Rock’s ass. When I got up… I saw the following :

1) my bike was badly wrecked. Gear pedal was bent backwards and brake jammed.
2) Wai was laying unconscious by the drain. His bike inside the drain.
3) a group of villagers came running checking us out.
4) the kid was crying .. still standing in the middle of the road.

The first thing that crosses my mind was to fix that goddam gear/brake. I then ran to a nearby house to borrow a hammer - but I was berated by a housewife for riding recklessly. Already feeling paranoid about the accident, I cussed her back “Damn old lady” for refusing to lend me her hammer. By that time, I saw the group of villagers were carrying Wai to a nearby grass clearing - performing a gang bang or something. Kidding… they were reviving him.

I then ran back to my badly damaged bike, dislodged the stuck brake … and started to push it back home. There were some housewives jeering at me but, I ignored them - for I was too distracted to do any explaining to them. The kid’s safe … and that’s good enough –> hero mentality.

Then, I approached another nearby home to borrow a hammer. Sure enough, a very kind old man lent me a hammer. Without further ado, I began to work on that defective gear pedal. And while I was busy working on that, a middle aged man who resembled George Harrison approached me and asked … in a very polite manner :

“Are you ok boy ? u need to go to the clinic or something ?”
“I’m ok thanks…. but my bike’s not doing good”
“What actually happened back there ?”
“We’re riding like usual .. then there’s this fucking kid standing right in the middle of the road”
“Then ?”
“And then ? we crashed to the side to avoid hitting him lah ! ”
“Oh… ok”
“That stupid kid’s parents ought be put to sleep for letting him stray like this.. cheeeebyee..”
“……..”
“Have u seen my friend ? how is he doing ?”
“He got a bad gash on his forehead. Need stitches or something .. someone sent him to clinic”
“How bout that kid ? he hurt or something ?”
“Yeah.. he’s doing good. Just shocked …still crying”
“Fucked up kid. Not even a scratch … cry like a sissy somemore”
“………”
“You happen to know the kid’s parents ? Help me educate them”
“Errrr … I’m the kid’s father”

I was speechless after learning the fact that George Harrison was the kid’s father. With a beet ruddy blushing face, I dropped the hammer and immediately pushed my bike to bail off from the place. I had a great deal of scolding from my father after that… but what hurt me the most was - to become back to zero for scorning the kid’s father.

I was suddenly awakened from my deep sleep by some shrill howling noise last night. I wasn’t very sober at that time and kinda wondered where does the sound came from. It stopped for a while. And when I was about to resume my dormant sleep, the howling noise came back again. This time, it really freaked me out and goosebumps started to pop up all over my body.

Then, as I started to gain my composure and soberness, I realized that the noise actually came from the person who’s sleeping next to me. Emily. Great. Questions began to cram up in my flustered mind. Why is she howling like that ? Am I suppose to do something ? I don’t know.

I was so unsure if I should turn over to check her out. What if she happened to look like that demonic livid looking Linda Blair in the movie Exorcist ? Or worst, accompanied with a question from her “Mike, do you still love me ?”. That must be hell of a situation.

I turned over nevertheless .. nope, she looked fine. No sign of Linda Blair. But her mouth was wide agape doing the howling noise - which by then, had already kept me awake for what it must be about 2 - 3 minutes. I was inclined to do something about her howling coz I desperately needed some sleep. I decided to nudge her till she’s half awake and reset whatever she’s doing.

But before I can actually do that, suddenly, she raises her hand and repeatedly smacked me on my face. Not actually a hard smack but, sort of like a slo-mo stodgy smack. Petulant enough to stupefy me in mid air. She continued to smack my face .. piak piak piak … while howling like a cowboy wolf. Almost seemed like she enjoyed it a whole lot. My mind was blank and obviously didn’t how to react… and her smacks were getting harder each time.

Obviously, she was having somekind of exciting dream that involves swatting somebody up. And I was unlucky to be her victim in the real world while she was creaming up somebody’s ass in her dream. Somebody who’s stone enough to stay static for her to smack repeatedly.

I then grasped her hand that smacked me, and got hold the other one too - in case she felt like balancing it up using the other hand. Somehow, during that particular moment, I felt that the situation was downright funny and I burst out laughing. I could not imagine what would my neighbour think .. to hear sounds of howling and hysterical cackle coming out from my room … right in the middle of the night.

She did not wake up at all during the entire ordeal. She then stopped howling after about 1 minute and resumed sleeping peacefully. The belligerence was finally over.

This is the first time I’ve ever encountered her doing things like this in her sleep. Maybe she was too stressed at work. When I told her what happened, she claimed that she wasn’t aware about it. She just knew that she had a nightmare last night and nothing else.

I believed her … although the situation was kinda like the opposite. More like my nightmare instead of hers.

If she keep doing this everynight, I might have to wear a full-faced helmet to sleep in future.