Second home II

Woke up early the next morning looking forward to a quiet and relaxing day at grandma's house. Took my time while coming down the stairs, humming and singing all the way to myself... was just about to step into the living room when the first thing that greeted me was (horror of horrors) my youngest brother (who was supposed to be staying at my cousin’s house) blasting away at the playstation with the television volume turned 3/4s of the way up. Took quite some time to make sure that it was really him when I noticed that, seated very calmly right beside my brother and holding another playstation joystick in his hand was (gasp!) my 9 year old cousin.

Sigh... but really… it’s not that I don’t like spending time with my brother [(or my cousin…), on the other hand I always make sure I have enough time for him…. even when I’m extremely busy] but its just that sometimes when I’m not feeling very well... I just... would much rather prefer to spend the entire day all by myself. A quiet day at my sanctuary away from all the hustle and bustle, with no worries and with both my grandparents beside me was actually closer to what I had in mind…. not babysitting.

As I had expected, I turned out to be their messenger + playtool + errand boy for the rest of the day, taking down and assembling the toys they’ve identified to be worthy of their time, and putting them back 5 minutes later, being their goalkeeper when they've decided to play football [please lar.. yee koh (2nd brother) pleaseee... don’t have enough people lar (tug at shirt)... please... a while onnnniiiiii... PLEEAASSEEE (looking very pitiful)], and from bringing them to the nearby park so they can participate in an apparent meeting of all 9 year olds in the neighbourhood to buying them lunch (one wantan mee konlou… urm… no wantan... but I want 3 chicken feet... and err.. one slurpee also… I think I want urm… chicken rice… no cucumber... extra rice… and ... one bottle of soyabean), I turned out even more exhausted than I would have been if I had just stayed at home.

The only highlight of the day came when my mom called up asking if I was going to be free tonight, as she wanted to book tickets for the whole family out for a movie... never mind that I hadn’t been able to put in much time into my books… had been reminding myself anyway since wednesday that I was going to watch the day after tomorrow the day after tomorrow.