A nephew came to the city the other day with his parents. Small town boy, not very familiar with the pace of the urban society in this part of the country, and going through some cool-with-an-attitude phase of life due to puberty.

He was at the mall with the family on that particular day, and got lost (he’s 13, by the way). I don’t exactly know how it could happen to a 13 fucking year old, but I imagined that it probably happened when he got too engrossed in checking out some skimpy clothed girls at the mall, that he forgot he had a set of parents. By the time he realized that the asses weren’t for his tapping in the real world, it was already too late. Mom and dad were gone and nowhere to be seen.

For you and me, this is nothing but an all too common thing, right? But not for my nephew. To him, that was like missing the last spaceship back to Earth at a planet in another solar system. He got no cell phone on him at that time (which, he conveniently left at his home planet, about 150 million light years away) so, the communication’s nil, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was, he didn’t have any identification nor money on him. So naturally, the only thing left for him to do was to FREAK THE FUCK OUT and started to frantically search for his parents, with tears on the verge of pouring out of his eyes (strangely, his hormones wasn’t working all too well at that time… his cool factor dropped a dozen notches almost instantly)

But that little turd was lucky though, because he found his parents soon enough before he started to wail like someone killed his dog. Had he searched his parents at the opposite wing of the mall building, things would have gotten more complicated that would involve some trauma, and embarrassment that would scar him for the rest of his adolescent life. But then, I reckon it would probably do that kid a lot more good if that were to happen. The katak eventually has to know the world outside his tempurung, and this will be a good opportunity.

It’s surprising to me that this guy doesn’t bring his cellphone when he has one. It’s distressing to know that kids nowadays do not see a cellphone as a communication device that could be useful in times of emergency, like this. They see cellphone as a device to check the status of their friends’ Fashion Ville empire or kill time with that tulanjiao game (Angry Birds in Hokkien, learned this from dSaint). Or at least, he should have a few bucks in his pocket, so that he could make a call to his parents’ cellphones! (that is, if he even knows his parents’ numbers). He could have been unlucky that day and got thrown into prison for not having an identification on him (Malaysian law enforcement is known to do that, what more with the recent dumbass Bersih crack down).

That is why my Regine was made to memorize my wife’s cellphone number and our home address at the age of 4 (that was last year). This year, she’s probably going to learn tae-kwon-do. Kids need to be savvy nowadays, and freak-the-fuck-out is not an option. I hope my nephew would be more savvy after this episode. He has to.