A horrific encounter with a child

JAKARTA (JP): My recent hunt for a cutlery tray almost became a saga of how I could well have ended in an institute of socialization on charges of having murdered a child.

What, you ask, is an institute of socialization? Well, you can't say "prison" or "jail" in this country because those words are not considered nice. Quite some time ago one or another language expert, reformer, alternator, whatever, managed to worm in the term socialization institute (lembaga pemasyarakatan) to replace prison or jail (penjara), probably to make the poor slobs inside feel better knowing the dump they've been dumped in has a nice sounding name.

But why would I murder a child? Well, it has to do with that confounded cutlery tray that seemed to be as elusive as the holy grail. But whereas Percy's soul was filled with noble and holy sentiments, mine was a maelstrom of black feelings towards the entire plastics industry that couldn't even come up with something as simple as a cutlery tray.

And it was in that mood that I entered an eatery in Matraman, after another fruitless search, this time at second level emporiums. As you remember (I won't hold it against you if you don't) I'd been looking for one in such posh places like Seibu and Sogo to no avail. I felt sure humbler establishments would be stocked to the rafters, so off I went -- this time focusing on Hero and Gelael supermarkets. But after having visited about half a dozen of these, all in vain, the mood had become poisonous and my innards were shrieking for sustenance, liquid as well as solid.

So there I was, inside the nice, cool eating joint, having carefully picked the seat to collapse in, that is, as far as possible from other customers -- not that the place was crowded. Took a long sip from a big glass filled with ice cold fresh lime and slowly the world began to look good again. But nothing is forever, and my peace of mind was shattered when the next table was suddenly infested by a couple with two girls of about three and five, which is the age when kids are at their most obnoxious and hardly fit to be called humans. The group included a nanny who had her hands full at controlling the brats who were screaming their heads off and running all over the place. I beckoned a waitress to let her know that I wanted "that table over there at the opposite end of the room". Assured that it wouldn't be a problem at all, I gathered my belongings and switched tables.

Alas, halfway through my sop buntut, history repeated itself at the adjoining table. Again a couple, again two brats, one boy of about four and the other...I suppose it was a girl, just about one year old or maybe a bit younger. The kid had, anyway, not reached the stage where it could utter words, unlike its older sibling whose vocabulary consisted mainly of three words the English equivalent of "mine" and "I want". But at least these two weren't as loud as their counterparts on the other end of the room, so, thanking divine providence for small blessings, I continued tackling the rest of my sop buntut, paying no attention to the frequent utterances of either parent whose vocabulary consisted mainly of three words the English equivalent of which are "don't do that".

It seemed that what the kid did not display in lung power it more than made up for in curiosity. He toddled all over the place, pulling tablecloths, snatching paper napkins, picking up a fork here, a spoon there, spraying toothpicks on the floor and displayed a fascination with my bag which I'd hung from the back of my chair. Anyway, I suddenly sensed something going on behind me, and sure enough, there he was fiddling with the bag's flaps.

I turned around and barked "Go away!!!" That bark, combined with daddy's "Aram, come here!!!", startled him out of a year's growth and he promptly gave a demonstration of his hitherto absent lung power. That was the point I came very close to being confronted with the awful majesty of the law on charges of murdering a child who ought to be biodegradable... you know, wash it and it disappears.

However, this tale has a happy ending. I paid the bill, and as I stepped out into the heat, my eye caught the multistory building across the street that houses a bookshop-cum- supermarket, so what the heck. Just one more shop wouldn't hurt. I went up to the supermarket floor, nosed around... and there they were, tucked away in a dark corner, covered with dust, in dark blue, green, yellow and red. I picked a dark blue specimen (of course), paid and left murmuring gratias agimus tibi in thanks.

-- Jak Jaunt