My Precious

At the expense of humiliating myself, I have decided to blog about a secret habit of mine- well, at least a decade and a half ago.

I was walking along happily out of the Simei MRT station this evening after I had booked out from camp. In front of me , a family of four strolled by, a pram in their wake , driven forward by none other than the older brother. The younger one was sleeping in the pram, peacefully sucking on his thumb, oblivious to the fact that his older brother was a head short than the pram and some innocent party's foot accounted for some of the "bumps" on the journey.

It was around that time when somehow I decided to put my hands together, palms facing me.

For what reason I do not know.

I always knew, however that the pinky on my right hand was longer than my left's. What I didn't know was why. I only knew that I did not use my right pinky to pick my nose,( like Doctor Evil) so that was not the reason. My toes came in handy for that.(I'm kidding alright)

In a flash my mind made the connection.

When I was little( that meant about 5 to 6 years old) , I had a small pillow which I brought with me everywhere; everywhere, except the toilet. Made from my grandmother's leftover cloths, it was brown and had designs you would expect to see on a cheap persian carpet. One corner I would use for pinching with thumb and forefinger.The others I would ignore.

Other time, I became attached to it. I began sniffing one particular corner-the corner I had between my fingers while methodically sucking on my right pinky. My grandmother gave a hokkien nickname to it. To this day, I still find it apt. She called it my " Chao Chao Bao Bei". Smelly baby.

Smelly baby accompanied me for much of my kindergarden and some of my primary school days. In fact rumour grew that the smell got so bad, all flowers within a 1km radius withered away and somewhere, another person collapsed due to air pollution.

Imagine the horror I felt when one day, I found it gone.

"ki sway liao la" , my grandmother pleaded with me. It had gone in the wash.

Try as she did to replace it, it was just different.Thing were never the same after that.

For one, the smell was gone.

I went into cold turkey for one afternoon. All was well again after I was brought to Macdonald's.

My right pinky however, whether psychologically or physically, became slightly longer than my left one.