singapore is such a bloody hot place. and coupled with the fact that i sweat and get as wet as a bitch in heat very easily, it's no joking matter. i usually spend 10 minutes walking from my home to the MRT station. and it's just within this 10 minutes of walking under the 7am sky, that i can already build up generic sweat stains on my clothes. and unless i have my handkerchief with me, i normally tell the general public that it's some trashy ink-blot design that i bought from an equally trashy clothing store with an equally trashy name (eg. a dairy product?!).


guns and poses

but yes, today's topic will be about the most indispensible thing to me whenever i head out to town (other than the handphone, keys, wallet, condoms, IDs, some concealer, money, good underwear, decent clothes, some confidence and myself). other than the above mentioned, it has to be the handkerchief. i've been an avid fan of the handkerchief since my kindegarten days. back then, i used to carry those gaudy yellow/blue/pink-chequered hankies which were really furry and super absorbant. you could clean stained parquet flooring or italian tiling with those fabrics in just one wipe! thus, what more yourself???

i remember one time in pre-school, i had a really bad tummyache from ingesting too many fishballs at one go. there was this birthday party (i think it was mine), and there were bee hoon, hot dogs, fried fishballs and a magnificent cake in the shape of a red car (my dad's car back then was a nostalgic red Suzuki, loads of memories). there were even those customary/mandatory little gift packets filled with kiddy goodies that i gave out to the friends. i was basically the star for the day. amidst all the festivities though, i had one too many balls, resulting in the tummyache as mentioned.

tummyaches lead to pooping. and pooping leads to toilets. and toilets lead to toilet paper. and apparently, the chain stops there because (and please cue the traumatising music) THERE WAS NO TOILET PAPER!!! now this is like every cheena-piang person's worst nightmare, because they would never ever stick their hands down there to give it a good water washing. which was namely what i didn't do back then. it was my birthday, there were people waiting outside the toilet for me to cut the cake. they prolly wanted to surprise me when i stepped out of the cubical with shit-stained hands. couple that with the fact that i didn't have toilet paper and you've got yourself a stressful situation. but ah..... i did have THE HANKIE. the super absorbant one with the chequered-squares that i wiped my arse with, gave a good wash in the sink, dried it and put it back in my pocket.

if the DJ saved my life last night, well then the hankie rescued my hole from a shitty unhygeinic death during my youth. and in case you're wondering, NO i didn't put the hankie back in my pocket. i threw it away okay!

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