Bedtime story

I didn't read much when I was a kid. And when I read, I only read Malay books, to be exact, those translated Enid Blyton's books. I never knew they were translated. I thought Enid Blyton was a Malay with a weird name. And I also thought that Enid is a male's name. How wrong I was at that time! And it was easy to get hooked to any of her books, since most of the times, you can relate to the character in the books, or imagine that you were one of them.

My favourite series would be the Secret Five. I'm sure almost all of you would have at least read one of the series. In Malay, it was translated to Lima Penyiasat. The main character is Gemuk, who was a master in disguise and always outwitting the local policeman, Encik Goon. He was assisted by John, Mary, Samy and Saroja and also at times, his dog, Buster.

There were a few tricks that they did in the book that was quite impressive. I still remember some of them, which includes the invisible ink trick (supposed to be lime juice) and to reveal the ink, you need to iron the message. Also the one where they were locked in a room, and what they did was slipped a piece of paper underneath the door, and poke the key out until it fell down onto the paper (of course the key needs to be in the keyhole on the other side of the door).

And I remember Gemuk has this shack where he hid his disguises. And he would disguised himself as different characters and walked around town to fool people (especially Encik Goon). Somehow, Goon and his bicycle always provide the humour in the story (with Buster occasionally barking and biting his legs).

Other than that, another one of my favourite is the Lima Sekawan series. This one is about Eddie, Dean, George, Mona and their dog, which I can't remember its name. Also about kids playing detective, but it is more like stumbling into a case rather than looking for one. Eddie, Dean and Mona are siblings, with George (Georgina is her real name, but she prefers to be called George, and likes to wear boy's clothing) being their cousin who lives in a house near the sea. So there were plenty of secret caves, islands adventures with the occasional pirates and treasures.

I think that was why I yearned for adventures and mystery during my childhood years. I even formed my own detective club in school, with our secret meetings and codes. But we didn't solve any mystery. It was more to creating our own mystery and solving them with our imagination. Something like role-playing (of course at that time, we had no idea what Dungeons and Dragons were). But all in all, we had a lot of fun. I still have our membership card, tuck safely in my drawer back at home.

I think I shall rummage that drawer the next time I'm home.

Don't have a cow, man

I miss being a cow. Yes, once upon a time, I was a cow. I started to notice that I was a cow when I was able to eat anything all the time, thus reaffirming that my stomach has 4 compartments, just like a cow, the rumen, reticulum, omasum and obamasum. Nowadays, I'm stuck with just one chamber, thus limited my capability to eat non-stop.

You know how in school kids like to give you nicknames (most of the time bad nicknames) based on your bad traits, or just simply to mock your father's name, or because of a physical defect? I have a friend who was called Mamut, because his father's name was Mohamad. Mamut is the name of Mumm-Ra's (the ever-living) dog is Thundercats. How silly is that? Another friend was called toyol, not because he likes to steal things, but because there was one time, he was coming out from the toilet with just a towel wrapped around his waist, when another friend came along from behind and pull his towel, leaving him completely naked. But instead of running for cover, he started to chase the prankster around the block, for about 10 minutes, completely naked. Of course almost everyone witnessed the incident, and thus the nickname.

Another friend was called Tom, not because he looked like Tom Cruise, but because his teeth was like A.R. Tompel's teeth, a bit potruding. While another one was called Bad, because he suffered the same fate, but since Tompel was already taken, he was called Bad based on A.R. Badul. How funny is that?

When I was in form 1, I liked to be at the front of the queue in front of the dining hall. Dinner was after Maghrib, and normally, after prayers you walked up to your dorms and changed before heading to the dining hall. But me being me (greedy and wanting to grab the biggest piece of chicken or fish), I wore my pants underneath my sarong, and as the prayers ended, just grabbed my bag at the back, took off my sarong and ran to the dining hall. Needless to say I was always at the front of the queue, and always ended up with the biggest portion (sometimes even double portion) of everything.

This eventually earned me the nickname Sprinter Dewan Makan (SDM). One thing about me, I really love to eat, even boarding school meals, which has the reputation of being yucky and disgusting at times. I eat everything, from the ikan jacket, to the wormy vegetables and the rotten potatoes. I guess I pretty much damaged my tastebuds, that's why until now, I can never tell whether the food is really good, because to me, most food tasted good (to a certain extend).

Anyway, my friends called me sprinter for a few years. Then one day, it all stopped, because I turned out to be a long distanced sprinter, and started winning races and represent the school in athletics competitions. That was when the nickname was retired, I guess being a real sprinter defeated the purpose of calling me sprinter (and I stopped running to the dining hall by then, because I've made friends with the makcik dewan makan, and it was a whole lot easier to get more portions for my meals that way).

Luckily enough, I remained slim and fit even after all these years of gorging myself away. I guess I have my high metabolism to thank to, and my active lifestyle also helps. But lately, I've noticed that I don't eat that much anymore. I guess age is catching up with me, and I'm more concern about what I put inside of me now. It can be frustrating at times, because I know I still want to eat, but I can feel my bloated stomach weaving away painfully, and I know it is time to stop.