Black Sheep Returns

Chinese New Year is a time when the family gathers at the ceremonial altar to pay their respects to their distant ancestors, hoping to be showered with future blessings especially when it comes to the next generation.

Guess we must have missed that particular benediction this year since it seems the black sheep in the family has started to live up to his name. After several generations of dull, nondescript law-abiding citizens, maybe he figures it's time we had some notoriety to shake things up!

A while back I made an ominous prediction that we'd probably have to raise funds to bail out my prodigal cousin one day - and it looks like my cousin Richie Runt is doing all he can to turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unsatisfied with merely extorting protection fees from even smaller runts, it seems that Richie has set his sights a bit higher by resorting to a bit of petty thievery instead.

Seriously don't know which is worse.


Dammit, how else to distinguish myself from the rest of my upstanding cousins! Maybe with a suitably colourful rap sheet? Maybe if I rob a bank?
Didn't take long after the reunion dinner before Lispy Lori pulled me aside to fill me in with the sordid details.

Lori : We think Richie Runt has been stealing from the coffeeshop till.
Paul : WTF. Are you sure?
Lori : Yes, we have proof. We didn't believe it ourselves until we saw the evidence. Video-cams and all that.
Paul : I hold him down, you break his arms and legs.
Lori : Wait, there's more.
Paul : So you brought it to the attention of his parents?
Lori : That actually made it worse. Well, you know his mother.

To compound to the nearly insurmountable problems faced by Richie Runt, his mother - the erstwhile Bo Peep - has not only lost any semblance of control over her black sheep, it seems she has lost her head as well. Rather than proffer any solid evidence to counter the supposedly erroneous accusations, our increasingly agitated Bo Peep instead forced her son to kowtow before said ancestral altar to proclaim his unsullied innocence.

While she provided increasingly shrill whines and wails to accompany the hysterical dramatics. Weepy Korean drama heroines couldn't possibly hold a candle to her imagined pathos.

Lori : Made her son Richie swear on the graves of his ancestors that he had never done any such thing on pain of having his limbs summarily broken.
Paul : Wow. Drama. Make cuts on their wrists to prove their innocence too?
Lori : Wish they had. I only thought it happened on television.
Paul : Evidently it's based on our family. Wish I was there though.
Lori : With your temper, you'd probably have strangled them both.
Paul : Quite likely. But I'd have taken a video of the ensuing hysterics for youtube first.
Lori : Sell the video instead so we can save the money to bail him out one day.

At the rate Richie Runt is regressing, I think that might be a strong possibility. Since he's turning eighteen soon, even juvenile court isn't going to save him anymore.