Fool me once, Shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
The history in 3 parcels
1. The first parcel
The first time you asked me to look after your bag, it had only been 3 hours since we first met. I was puzzled of course; who in their right mind would ask a practical stranger to look after their possessions. You glanced at me with that look, which I would learn to recognise as the “duhh cos its you” look.
“I trust you.”
I knew you were special.
2. The second parcel
The second time you asked me to look after your bag, it had been 2 years since we first met. I had met you in your room and helped you pack your stuff so that you could move out. I would be flying off to India in a few hours and we discussed your new plans of taking a detour to my hometown. We would go to the beach near my home where the sand slips through the spaces between your feet and act out scenes from Bollywood movies. We would visit my favourite restaurant that I have eaten from since I was a child. Yes, we built many dreams like castles in the sand.
Of course, when I went to India, I realised that all our carefully constructed plans were doomed. The brother whom I depended on to take me around wasn’t even allowed to hang out with me. I was not the free bird that I thought I would be when I was in India. Instead I was a trapped in a golden cage where I was given everything I wanted except the freedom to go where I wanted. A cage is a cage even if it is golden.
I got the date that you arrived wrong and my brother rushed to pick you up. As promised, I told him to help store your bag.
I told you that the trip my uncles planned was unexpected. I lied. I knew about it. I just had no way of telling you. So when you called me while I was travelling and you kept screaming at me, at my brother, I snapped. I told you that I could no longer receive any reception. I lied. I switched off the phone so that I wouldn’t have to face your shite for a while.
Eventually my brother gave you back your bag. You walked away without a word of thanks.
I cried. I ranted.
When I came back, I wanted to remove every trace of you from my life.
I threw away everything. The bottle of vodka with the scorpion from your time in Thailand (“I remembered how much you love being a scorpio”). The shells from America (“I know you love the water”). The teddy bear patterned pyjamas from Canada (“I wore it already. So wear it when you miss me”).
I couldn’t believe that “we are finished”, your words not mine, over a piece of bag.
3. The third and final parcel
The third time you asked to send you a parcel, it had been 6 months since you left for turkey. It was winter and you needed your winter clothes (your books, food and porn collection you didn’t want your brother to find).
I begged you to ask someone else to get it for you. D ( I am not that close to him), your favourite cousin (she hates my mother) and even your sister (you know I don’t trust her).
So eventually after my exams I went over to your place and packed your stuff ( it took me a total of 5 trips to get everything settled).
After sending the package (to lure me to your home in the first place, you sent my birthday present to your home), I waited for you to get it.
You didn’t receive it for ages. Turns out that while I was in the post office trying to juggle crying the parcel and my phone, I had accidently cancelled the street address.
One morning at around 5.47am, I wake up to your voice screaming, “you bitch!” and your vitriol about how I was the cause of the missing parcel and how you knew I couldn’t be trusted. That I was careless; that to me you were never important. The icing on the cake was when you passed the phone to your boyfriend and asked him to explain to me the consequences of my action. You told me the parcel was now on its way back to Singapore and that it had left turkey soil and was at that very moment in Pakistan.
I couldn’t care less. It wasn’t even 6am.
Over the next few days, I would be calling the post office. I would find your full address [which you sent to me in a very sarcastic letter] and I would call the post office almost everyday until the day I got the message that it was at a postoffice near to you.
It has been 2 weeks since then and there has been no news from you. After all this work,I had to make sure you got it.
So I asked you how it went, and you replied.
That you had forgotten to tell me how you had received your package (I got stuff. I've been so busy cooking them that I forgot to tell you I got the package. And yes I traveled out of the city to get the package because they refuse to send it to my house. Oh they also charged me a small sum of money which I gladly paid for my 10kg package. Oh you forgot to send a lot of important stuff but I'll try to call my mother to ask if she can send them. Thanks.)
So this is how, with the third package our friendship ends.
1. The first parcel
The first time you asked me to look after your bag, it had only been 3 hours since we first met. I was puzzled of course; who in their right mind would ask a practical stranger to look after their possessions. You glanced at me with that look, which I would learn to recognise as the “duhh cos its you” look.
“I trust you.”
I knew you were special.
2. The second parcel
The second time you asked me to look after your bag, it had been 2 years since we first met. I had met you in your room and helped you pack your stuff so that you could move out. I would be flying off to India in a few hours and we discussed your new plans of taking a detour to my hometown. We would go to the beach near my home where the sand slips through the spaces between your feet and act out scenes from Bollywood movies. We would visit my favourite restaurant that I have eaten from since I was a child. Yes, we built many dreams like castles in the sand.
Of course, when I went to India, I realised that all our carefully constructed plans were doomed. The brother whom I depended on to take me around wasn’t even allowed to hang out with me. I was not the free bird that I thought I would be when I was in India. Instead I was a trapped in a golden cage where I was given everything I wanted except the freedom to go where I wanted. A cage is a cage even if it is golden.
I got the date that you arrived wrong and my brother rushed to pick you up. As promised, I told him to help store your bag.
I told you that the trip my uncles planned was unexpected. I lied. I knew about it. I just had no way of telling you. So when you called me while I was travelling and you kept screaming at me, at my brother, I snapped. I told you that I could no longer receive any reception. I lied. I switched off the phone so that I wouldn’t have to face your shite for a while.
Eventually my brother gave you back your bag. You walked away without a word of thanks.
I cried. I ranted.
When I came back, I wanted to remove every trace of you from my life.
I threw away everything. The bottle of vodka with the scorpion from your time in Thailand (“I remembered how much you love being a scorpio”). The shells from America (“I know you love the water”). The teddy bear patterned pyjamas from Canada (“I wore it already. So wear it when you miss me”).
I couldn’t believe that “we are finished”, your words not mine, over a piece of bag.
3. The third and final parcel
The third time you asked to send you a parcel, it had been 6 months since you left for turkey. It was winter and you needed your winter clothes (your books, food and porn collection you didn’t want your brother to find).
I begged you to ask someone else to get it for you. D ( I am not that close to him), your favourite cousin (she hates my mother) and even your sister (you know I don’t trust her).
So eventually after my exams I went over to your place and packed your stuff ( it took me a total of 5 trips to get everything settled).
After sending the package (to lure me to your home in the first place, you sent my birthday present to your home), I waited for you to get it.
You didn’t receive it for ages. Turns out that while I was in the post office trying to juggle crying the parcel and my phone, I had accidently cancelled the street address.
One morning at around 5.47am, I wake up to your voice screaming, “you bitch!” and your vitriol about how I was the cause of the missing parcel and how you knew I couldn’t be trusted. That I was careless; that to me you were never important. The icing on the cake was when you passed the phone to your boyfriend and asked him to explain to me the consequences of my action. You told me the parcel was now on its way back to Singapore and that it had left turkey soil and was at that very moment in Pakistan.
I couldn’t care less. It wasn’t even 6am.
Over the next few days, I would be calling the post office. I would find your full address [which you sent to me in a very sarcastic letter] and I would call the post office almost everyday until the day I got the message that it was at a postoffice near to you.
It has been 2 weeks since then and there has been no news from you. After all this work,I had to make sure you got it.
So I asked you how it went, and you replied.
That you had forgotten to tell me how you had received your package (I got stuff. I've been so busy cooking them that I forgot to tell you I got the package. And yes I traveled out of the city to get the package because they refuse to send it to my house. Oh they also charged me a small sum of money which I gladly paid for my 10kg package. Oh you forgot to send a lot of important stuff but I'll try to call my mother to ask if she can send them. Thanks.)
So this is how, with the third package our friendship ends.