A horrific encounter with a child

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