Mumbles the Maid

Fingers crossed, I have always been fortunate in my choice of maids.

Horror stories abound in the mainstream media about maids who range from the drunk to the disorderly, from the delinquent to the downright deranged. Compared to that nightmarish lot, my maids have been relatively benign. Despite my unfortunate tendency to order them about imperiously ( armed with a trusty silver bell ), I don't think my maids have made any complaints. Obviously there are far worse slavedrivers around who offer their own inhumane version of turkish treatment.

Even my egalitarian boyfriend - perpetually appalled over my haughty manner - would admit that I have never ill-treated my maids. Not even a raised voice.

Which is why they adore me. Or secretly plot in the fields of Netherfield to ignite a fiery revolution and have my noble head guillotined.

Fortunately my newest maid would rally the crowd alone since there is no one else under my regular employ. And few would even understand her seditious suggestions, if she had any, since she mumbles.


Paul : Surely you understood what she meant?
Kat : I honestly didn't have the slightest idea.
Paul : I was depending on you to to decipher her cryptic dialect. Not even her name then?
Kat : I'm afraid she lost me at hello.
Yes. My maid mumbles.

Very first time we called to hire her, we could barely make out her garbled name which is why we immediately assigned a new nickname for her. Maid Mumbles. Rather than speak in one of the beautifully melodious local dialects here, Mumbles chooses to maul the English language instead - armed with a dozen mutilating marbles in her mouth.

Or a precious gold nugget. I haven't quite decided which.

Paul : Lovely work, my dear. I think you deserve a bonus this month.
Mumbles : Gobbledygook.
Paul : Umm, you're welcome?
Mumbles : Tarabarshchina.
Paul : I'm sorry, was that a thank you?
Felix : We should run. That could be a threat.

Wonderful worker. Efficient, eager and enthusiastic. Seriously frustrated that I can't understand her better. Initially wondered whether I had developed a listening disorder ( or an early stroke ) when I found that I couldn't comprehend her garbled speech! Only when the other tenants in the household agreed wholeheartedly that they found her a puzzling enigma did I realize that the fault didn't lie with me.

Maybe as a legacy of the Brooke dynasty, she speaks with a Dartmoor accent?

Web of Lies

My brother is a straightforward kinda fellow. Literally what you see is what you get. Says what he means, means what he says. Very little duplicity or subterfuge of any kind in his everyday actions.

Unlike me. Growing up in the closet has turned me into something akin to a devious Cold War intelligence agent hiding deep undercover in the unassuming suburbs, always trying to blend in with the heteronormative crowd while nervously concealing that hush hush secret. Though I've gradually crept out of the closet, I still find it hard to abandon such old ingrained habits of deception.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!


Mom : That's a whole lotta stuff in your closet!
Trying to untangle the web of lies gets a bit complex when you have a similarly cryptic mother. Each time my brother and I have worked out that she already knows, she suddenly backtracks only to leave us fumbling. Does she know? Doesn't she know? Given up on the pretense entirely though so I just fumble along while waiting for her to pop the question.

Never one to wait patiently, I tend to suggest dozens of gay melodramas for her hoping to needle her for the question. Including recently sending a Korean family drama called Life is Beautiful which includes a gay doctor amongst the multi-generational cast.

Then today my mother sends me this odd message.

Mother : Shedding loads of tears over how a family handles a gay son in Life is Beautiful.
Paul : Huh.

Unlike my semi-obtuse brother ( and similarly oblivious boyfriend ), I tend to read much more into words and actions, digging to find a deeper meaning. Even when there's none.

However my mom, like me, has always been particularly deliberate in what she does. Surely that encoded message didn't come from out of the blue. So does my mother mean she understands and empathizes with what I'm going through? Or is she busy weeping because the family has been plagued with the horribly shameful spectre of homosexuality?


Or that she just likes weeping over Korean melodramas even when it's mainly about gay issues.

Siamese Twin Syndrome

It turns out my friend Whispery Wilhemina has managed to hold on to her latest man date. Nice sensible fellow - that we've secretly started calling Deputy Dawg - since he does have a painful propensity to slip into hip hop slang.

But that's fine by me since at least the Dawg doesn't smack her around.

Paul : I take it things are going well with you and your new fella?
Wilhelmina : We're keeping it real, you know what I'm saying?
Paul : Is that a bling I'm blinded by?
Wilhelmina : Yeah, home boy, I so love hip hop now.
Paul : Didn't you once call it ghetto trash?
Wilhelmina : I've found a new appreciation for it.
Paul : You know you're doing again, don't you?
Wilhelmina : Doing what?
Paul : Changing to suit your new boytoy.

Let me recall the more memorable ones to reiterate. I recall Wilhemina's immersion into the neon waters of Japanese pop - just because her ex worked there once upon a time - only to emerge as a skankier version of Ayumi Hamasaki. Then there was the time Wilhelmina flipped into a psycho-housewife version of Nigella Lawson just to please her ex with profiteroles and madelines.

And now this. I could have sworn Wilhelmina had a temporary tramp stamp on her back but I couldn't tell for sure.


Joined at the hip? NO!
Look, I understand trying to find common interests with your new partner.We all do things to please the ones we love. We try the things they like. We listen to the music they like. We watch the movies they like. Trying out new music, new books, new pursuits, new experiences - all that can be quite an adventure with somebody new.

But I always figure there should be a line. We don't really have to be exact Stepford clones of each other, do we? Smacks of the horrific Siamese Twin Syndrome that I'm always so afraid of.

Siamese Twin Syndrome? Oh yeah, to me it means clones joined at the hip.

Something I have no intention of falling into. Surely even though we're together, we are allowed to have our own interests, hobbies and pursuits separate from our partners? Certainly made me wonder whether Charming Calvin and I have become nearly identical in that respect.

What a horrifying prospect!

Drag Kings

Since they are already locally ( internationally? ) renowned for their shocking lack of intelligence and forethought, we have grown to expect acts of incomprehensible, ill-conceived suggestions from our ever-expanding army of idiotic Malaysian bureaucrats.

And yet sometimes they can still surprise us with their sheer stupidity.

Like their recent attempts to de-sissify the boys with a correction school. Turns out the draconian State Education department has pin-pointed 66 unfortunate schoolboys with effeminate tendencies and forced them to a mysterious gulag aimed at helping them behave in a proper socially acceptable manner.


Time to be a man!
Or else.
How exactly do the narrow-minded fools judge? With the terrifying spectre of homosexuality and transgenderism hanging over their heads, supposedly teachers were instructed the year before to identify students who displayed feminine qualities. Already have this classic black-and-white scene in my head where uniformed officers march in Gestapo-like to a classroom to snatch schoolkids according to the noodle limpness of their wrists. Or maybe even that teeny bit of sway in their hips? A profound admiration for music, culture and arts?

A crazed obsession for Lady Gaga?

Seriously. Not even gay-dar works that well all the time!

So how would the classes in the straight-acting gulag be conducted? My mind literally boggles at their futile attempts to butch someone up! Teach them how to walk? Teach them how to talk? And who would these macho experts at this exclusive finishing school be?

No doubt the classes would prove to be something like the infamous scene from In & Out. Be a man. Kick someone. Punch someone. Bite someone's ear.


So much for schools providing a safe and neutral environment for our children to grow and develop without fear of recrimination for being themselves. Guess these days our education system prefers churning out rough, tough manly thugs who spit and scratch themselves.

And don't dance.

Seriously never had the urge to drag till now. Move over, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. All I wanna do now is leap into slinky stilettos, pile on the make-up with a shovel and drive a neon-pink bus over to the rescue the much-abused boys.

Tech Whiz Kids

I gotta say kids these days are amazing.

While I'm still trying my best to fathom the intricacies of wi-fi, I see relative rugrats punching PS3s, cracking up their iPods and clogging up twitter with their reasonably mundane daily routines. With the unstoppable advent of technology - and the seemingly ubiquitous internet, kids these days are getting far more exposure to the rest of the world than ever I did as a child growing up.

Of course along with the best the world has to give, the kids these days have to contend with the bad as well - all the predatory dangers that come along in the Pandora's box. Monsters don't sneak out from under the bed these days, so much easier to slide along the dark, dank passageways of the shadowy net onto the computer screen. Anxious parents would like nothing more than to lock up their tech-whiz children - along with the computers as a prevention.

Sadly, to many parents, there's only one option-a simple one: Keep their children off the Internet entirely.


Ooh whatchu looking at!
Prevention.

Despite the fact that I'm a practicing doctor, prevention isn't a word I am a particular fan of. A form of censorship that covers all ills. Prevent rape. Cover up the women. Prevent smoking. Ban cigarettes. Prevent drinking. Ban alcohol.

Like that ever stopped anyone. Prohibition without education never works.

And seriously there shouldn't be talk of prevention when the disease has already stricken more than half the population. With the cyberspace only a simple click away even in the most remote places, exactly how are you going to prevent your child from falling prey to the internet ills?

Sister-in-law : OMG Chatty Carmen is online on facebook!
Paul : She is? My niece is a prodigy! Can I be her friend?
Sister-in-law : No way! I am stopping this. I don't know how she got online! I must stop it.
Paul : By locking up the computer each time she comes near? How about the computers in school? How about the cybercafes?

Filtering? Blocking? Parental controls?

Oh please. Don't you know that's like waving a red flag in front of a rebellious child? I can tell you that since I was one of the kids who'd enjoy breaking a rule just to prove a point.

I'm more a fan of education. Even parental controls need some semblance of instruction. Children these days need to be internet literate. Rather than imprison the child in a tower keep ( and then throwing away the key ), I'd give them the tools to combat any online predators that come their way. Isn't that a better solution?