Solomon's Mind

Of Cloth Merchants And History Essays

On Wednesday, I gave up trying to act rationally and decided to play Warcraft instead. This meant Ms. Cheng's History Essay Of Portentous Doom lay lurking in some forgotten digital corner of my computer. Did it prey heavily on my mind? Sadly, no. This student was too caught up in trying to level up Chen the Pandaren Brewmaster to level 15 instead.

'No worries, mate' intoned my id, trying to convince my ego.

'You'll regret it later' retorted my ego.

'How the heck would you know?' sneered the id.

'Something will come up. Something always does, and you'll have no time to finish MCHEOPD. Come on, this is Solomon's life we're talking about? How many times has something like this happened?' monologued the ego.

Turns out the bastard was right.

So I walk into the sacred portals of TP the next day, swearing to God and all mankind that I would rush home immediately after school ended to tackle the essay. How easily the best-laid plans of mice and men are laid to waste.

'Oi Sul' called Pang. 'I need ya to go to Joo Chiat and get some tablecloths for our Carnival Stall.'

'But I need to get that history essay done...'

'I put you in charge man' said the Pang.

And bigod he was right. I had volunteered to do something for the decor comittee for Carnival Day. (Cue laughter) If any of them knew...

This was so 180 degrees as to the Finn of last year. The Finn of last year would have sawn off his own fingers with a metal ruler before offering to do something for [f*ckin] 05S34. That's all changed now. I don't mind going out of my way to help, cos I love this class of mine. All there is to it.

So on the stroke of 12.50 me and Raj were off to Paya Lebar. I had recalled seeing something like a Spotlight shop in the big post office building, where we could get cloth. Raj, poor native of Clementi that he is, had no clue whatsoever to the areas east of Jurong. I stopped laughing when he pointed out he could sleep in his own bed if he went to NUS, whereas the majority of us would have to book rooms. Darn.

Paya Lebar MRT, a place that still held significant memories. As a first-three-monther at Millennia Institute, I knew the place quite well. Not as well as I thought I did though, as we found out later.

'See Raj? That's the shop I was referring to'

Raj looked.

'That's a boutique, Sulaiman'.

And so it was.

After the obligatory mental D'oh!, we had no choice but to press on towards Joo Chiat, wherever that was. It was bleeding hot, I can tell you. As we trudged on, the surroundings began to seem suspiciously familiar. Then it hit me.

'Aiyah, this is Geylang lah! Every Hari Raya my family comes here to buy stuff. It does look different from a non-Hari-Raya perspective though' I confided to a long-suffering Raj.

I had passed the place countless times in car...haha, apathetic youth that I am, I never bothered to find out the name of the big shopping center with all the cloth merchants.

We got the banner cloth from a nice auntie, 2 metres by 1 metre, and pleasantly cheap it was too. 4 bucks! Pang had given us 40. 'This is gonna be so cheap' I grinned to Raj.

You know, I seriously think God overheard me. God overheard me and either wanted to punish me for the evil sin of arrogance, or maybe he was just really bored of counting all the stars in the sky, or something, and wanted to have some fun. It's the only explanation I have for what happened next.

Having got the banner cloth for a song, we wanted to get a nice one for the table cloths. Now Sochenda had wanted 3 by 2.5 metres, which seemed enormously big to us. So we confirmed with Pang again. He wanted three cloths, and they had better be 3x2.5. Haha, got owned by the Pangster. It was thus I made my first big mistake.

FUCK-UP 1: 'Hey Raj, that pattern looks nice.'

FUCK-UP 2: 'Ooh, look at the sign. It says special offer, just 2 bucks!'

Oh my goodness me. I know from long experience that I am not a bargaining person in any way whatsoever. I always want to avoid a confrontation, even if it means paying stupidly high prices. Generations of ancient Chinese ancestors glare down upon me in shame and ridicule. I deserve it.

FUCK-UP 3: 'Uncle, can you help us? We don't know exactly how much to get because we want to cover three sets of three tables joined together.'

So the uncle does some funky calculations and convinces me that 3 pieces are not enough, 6 are needed. Drunk on a combination of triumph after buying the banner for 4 bucks and a 7-11 Super Slurpee, I did a Picard.

'Make it so, my good man.'

Uncle starts cutting up the cloth, Uncle 2 starts wrapping it up. I ask for the price. Uncle taps away at calculator again.

'$39.60'

Hahaha, uncle, surely you mean $3.96? Or maybe 19.60? Come on for fuck's sake, it can't be that close to 40 bucks...

It was.

FUCK-UP 4: I don't want to make that bastard mad any more than he already is Raj, let's just take it and leave.

Thus I parted with four lovely brand-new polyester orange Yusof Ishaks. I'm sure I saw one of the ten-dollar bills cry in sympathy. And if it wasn't enough, the devious Fu-Manchu of a Cloth Merchant made us wait unnecessarily long for the receipt.

Outside, me and Raj were in a state of shock over how Mission: Possible suddenly turn into Mission: Get Punk'd. I decided to take it like a man and call Soh pronto to report my latest findings.

'Soh...the cloth together cost 43.60'

I could almost literally see Sochenda turning in her seat to yell at a bunch of nameless 06A05'ers.

'Eh, the cloths alone cost over 40 dollars!'

Then Pang was on the phone. 'How much?'

'Erm...43.60 altogether Johan.'

'But the banner, you said it cost only 4 dollars!'

And so I had. Hmm, that should be FUCK-UP number 0.5, or something.

'Never mind Sul, for the table cloth just get the same type as the banner. Cheaper that way.'

'Um, we bought the thing already...'

Gods. No one deserved this, least of all my man Johann. But at least he didn't go off on me, of which I was extremely grateful for. Haha, people like him in last year's class? Not a chance.

Well, I had to do the decent thing and offer to pay the difference of twenty bucks, ten when shared with Raj, even though I guess I was more to blame.

And as if to complete the picture, the heavens opened up and rain fell in torrential deluges, completely making a mockery of my sweltering forehead due to the sunny weather just twenty minutes earlier. We had to shelter under a little bus-stop, watching the rain fall and mentally replaying the great Joo Chiat foul-up.

I swore that somewhere, far above the dark clouds above us, I could just make out the sound of God, rolling around on the celestial floor of Heaven, laughing His sacred ass off.

And MCHEOPD was still unfinished. I had to stay-up until 2.30 am to finish it. Of course, if I didn't spend half the time visiting redandwhitekop.com after writing about colonialism for a line or two and googling for pictures of Sarah Silverman and Rachel McAddams, I suppose I might have gotten a few more hours of sleep.

What can I say? Procrastination is a disease. I haven't been given the cure.

Finn Solomon 8:45 PM

PROFILE

Sulaiman Daud a.k.a. Finn Solomon a.k.a. Dark Solomon, emo boy.

Liverpool FC die-hard. Rafael Benitez is my master.

Arts Student of Tampines College

Fortunate member of the best academic class in Singapore- 06A05

Reporter for the TODAY Newspaper

Fairly liberal Muslim

Technophobe

Quite possibly the biggest Stephen King/Terry Pratchett fanatic in the world

Lover of classic rock- The Beatles, Guns N' Roses, The Who, Led Zeppelin and AC/DCtag

Gemini- This might explain the days when I am insufferably moody. And also the days when I am wildly optimistic.

Dragon- The Chinese Zodiac is intriguingly accurate in its assessment of my character.

Shares a special bond with a special girl from Texas, an amazing woman in Madrid, the erudite psycho of Tampines, an amusing Egyptian and the classy rock lady in Canada, a great friend from the Phillipines, a lovely lass from Venezuela, another one in Sheffield, and the coolest of dudes from Miami, Minnesota and London.

If for some reason any of you are reading this, you know who you are. Thanks.