It is a Saturday evening at a crowded mall. Jurong has become cool now. My friend says I should make a T-shirt that says "I lived in Jurong before it was cool." Maybe she's right. But it is heating up in here, right next to the Gelato stand. 

A little girl stands in the middle of a narrow walk way to take a photo of her father with a plastic Christmas tree. 

 I walk behind her to avoid the pair who are oblivious to the crowd trying to make their way through. maybe I should have walked right in front of the camera lens instead of trying to be polite. Maybe the father would have been less angry with me then.

The overprotective maid accuses me of pushing the little girl. The father takes the maid's words for it. And he stares.  Because that is what Singaporeans do right? Stare from a distance at the offender, shooting Matilda-esque beams of disdain at them, in a tremendously obnoxious display of passive-aggression. 

But what he doesn't know is that  this short, small-sized girl is crazy. She is going to defend herself. Once the father realises his anger has no basis, he resorts to moving closer to the offender. Confronting the crazy girl wordless-ly. A grown man reduced to a childish, playground-like staring match. "So what are you going to do now?" The crazy girl asks. "I just want to get away from you." He replies indignantly. Before the crazy girl has a chance to snort at his reply, the wife appears, gently pulling her husband away. Desperately trying to pull him out of what will soon be a bigger confrontation. Well you know what they, behind every impulsive man, there is a long-suffering woman. 

Where is the little girl in all of this? She is standing in shock watching the confrontation unfold. Poor child. The problem with making mistakes is that someone else always has to suffer the consequences of them. And children like you are the ones who suffer most when your parents want the best for you, but don't know what that is.