i've just realized that i seem to have this propensity to lose a lot of my earthly possessions. it happens at least once a while. so much so that i suspect that somewhere in heaven, there's a gigantic lost and found container that stores the souls of all my missing items. if you look into that container, you would find a wide myriad of bizarre items like condoms, nipple rings, coins, stamp books, story books, keys, ear studs, jewelry, etc. may they rest in peace.

surprisingly though, i have yet to lose a single mobile phone, wallet, music player, laptop, PDA; anything that amounts to relatively big sums of cash. most of these items that i have just mentioned are stuff that people would more often that not, lose via theft.

i guess for most parts of my life, i have had the great fortune of being low-key enough to not be a target for theft. it's either that or i have very bad taste in general. i mean, who would want to steal a ratty Paul Frank wallet that's filled with minimal cash, a nursing license, banking cards, several spa memberships, my 11B and my identity card (IC)? come to think of it, my IC features a picture of me when i was eleven years of age, looking as dashing as the buttock of a 132kg Chinese man. couple that with my 11B which has a very unflattering shot of me (many whom have seen it said that i look like a recruit fresh from the Chinese Communist Army), and you should have enough reasons to not steal my wallet.

i can't think of anybody who would have any motive to steal any of my stuff except for greed in general. and when it comes to people in general, i'm very chummy, if not at least genial, with them. this is why i know that most of the stuff that i have lost in my entire lifetime is due to my own doing. which is why, my guilt-laden heart goes out to these casualties of my carelessness and forgetfulness. thus, here's an ode to my losses (insert sentimental 'heal-the-world' type tune here).

FOUR THINGS THAT I HAVE LOST IN ALL 22 YEARS OF MY LIFE

Cigarette Lighters
each time i'm out of the house, i would at least have two cigarette lighters with me. when i'm at home, the number triples (that's a lie, it's closer to ten actually). i'm not sure if my fellow smokers out there are experiencing the same thing, but i lose at least one lighter per week. sometimes a colleague borrows it from me and i couldn't be bothered to get it back. at other times, i leave it in my cargo pants pocket or nursing uniform pocket (that's the problem with having more than the standard three pockets on your pants) and the laundry puts out whatever sparks that's left in the love-hate between the lighter and me. in fact, it pisses me off when i lose my lighter because that would mean scanning the crowd for fellow smokers. and when you're in the hospital wearing the nurse's uniform, it's one of the hardest things to do. but you can generally tell smokers apart from the crowd. the yellowed teeth, the bulging pockets, the look of angst after a smoke, funky smells, etc. it's a minor inconvenience, but no less irritating.

Earrings & Ear Studs
what's an earring if it doesn't come in a pair? especially if you're the proud owner of a pair of ear piercings. it is most inconvenient therefore, that i'm always losing my ear studs. usually because i don't wear them at home and neither do i wear them at work. the parents don't really fancy their sons with ear holes. they would have being literally 'gunning' for a daughter if they wanted to dress their kids up with ear pieces. which is why i normally put on my ear jewelry on the way out. this usually results in me dropping either the ear stud or the piece that secures the ear stud in place. and believe me, looking for gray-colored stuff on a large amount of concrete is like looking for a single strand of hay in a stack of needles. i actually have a large collection of one-sided ear studs at home which i don't wear anymore. they don't call me the 'widow-maker' for nothing, y'noe.

Keys At Work
in my entire life, i have only lost my house keys once. in my entire time working at this current hospital however, i have lost my locker key more than ten times. out of those ten times, i have done the 'lost & found' three times, lost the spare key four times, and replaced the lock another three times. currently, i have lost both the original fourth key and the spare, which is quite irritating. it's not so much about locker security that i'm worried about because the only things i keep in my locker are my black Air Force Ones and a pencil case filled with kilometrico pens. nothing worth stealing unless you are one to hoard 'em ol' skool sneakers. the main irritation that comes with losing my locker key derives from the fact that my lady boss would always harp on me whenever it happens. and you know how women are like when they start nagging. you could get Polly to put a kettle on and do it in a French maid costume as well.

which is why since i lost the fourth key during the previous month, i have decided to do away with keys once and for all. applying what i had learned during my secondary school physics class, i crowbarred my locker open with a pair of nurse's scissors. that was the easy part. the hard part was having to use raw brute force to bend the lock till the locker could be shut without it getting in the way. but ten minutes of applied physics and months of gym training paid off. now, my locker can actually be closed without a key. ditto for my lady boss' naggy mouth as well. okay lah, at least until the next audit comes about when they will launch into a massive manhunt for missing keys.

Virginity
since we're dealing with the topic of loss, i might as well talk about my first time as well. in fact, i have never shared this with anyone else other than ex-boyfriends. it is weird that nobody has asked and i'm actually quite thankful for that. simply because they weren't magical moments where i saw color in my life for the first time and it wasn't exactly mind-blowing as well.
i have always personified my virginity as a virtuous church-going girl. one who has sworn to lose her virginity to a decent guy who truly loves her and wants to make her first time a pleasurable experience. but of course, as my favorite saying goes: Man proposes, but God disposes.

my first blowjob was via cruising. back in the secondary school days when i learned about the concept of cruising for sex in the toilets, i was clueless about how to go about asking for sex and safety precautions. it was basically an older man, an ah pek to be precise. he was fat, he was ugly and the dirty deed was done in the even dirtier location of the public toilet. rather far from what the church-going girl envisioned her first time to be. i remember trying to avoid stepping on the urine puddles, all the while inhaling the putrid stench of shit. and the image that stuck in my mind today was that of a short and fat penis.

the first fuck was not that bad at least. this was when church-going girl was slowly transforming into a slutty cheerleader of sorts. she's still out and about with a bad 80s hairdo and netted stockings, but deep down inside she was still looking for that special something. special what she didn't know. but it was special all the same. so she agreed to hook up with this Malaysian hairstylist who brought her home to a rented apartment. amidst broken English and plenty of Mandarin, they managed to have some civilized sex in a bathtub with her getting screwed in them yonder regions. but it was the aftermath that made her swore that she would never do the same again. bloody stools, painful defecation and an overall feeling of being a slut. it was with that sentiment that virginity had found her way into that lost and found box in heaven.

at least now her previous owner's learned his lesson and is getting way better sex than her.

My Enid Blyton Book
this one's for sentiment's sake. kids tend to lose things very easily. prolly cos they just don't having a single care in the world other than collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards and completing their homework so that they can watch the next episode of Shaman King. having led a deprived childhood, i wasn't like that. i was terrified of losing things because a big scolding would be in tow for each item that i lose. it was because of this fear, that i guarded my possessions with care during my childhood. well, i was the proud owner of an Enid Blyton book during the primary school days. i can't remember the title now for the life of me, but i do recall the front cover having a picture of a teddy bear with a kite tail. it was my favorite book, so much so that i colored in every single picture in the book. so you could imagine how much fear and sadness there was when i found my Enid Blyton book missing. i panicked. i even reported to my form teacher in the hopes that she perhaps might launch a massive hunt for my book. even a trip to the school's lost and found box reveal nothing other than various items typical of a schooling child. umbrellas, sweaters, textbooks, water bottles, etc. nothing that resembled an Enid Blyton book though. till today, i have no idea whether it was stolen or missing. i hope it was stolen though. at least i know my art is being appreciated.


of course, the list does not just stop there. because unlike my childhood, these days i tend not the guard my things at all. i could leave my cell and wallet lying around on a public table and still be sure that it'll be around when i return. countless colleagues and friends have repeatedly reminded me about the perils of leaving stuff lying around. but you know what they say: it takes one to know one. it's prolly the wrong quote, but the point is, that i don't think i'll really feel the pinch of loss until i have experienced loss myself. i guess it's good that i still have this innate trust in humankind to not take my stuff away.

try asking that church-going girl about humankind though. i bet she would would rip your ass apart.

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