Wednesday 27 August 2025
Following on from yesterday's post about my mom.
If it was not made obvious enough already, I am my mom's favourite child, being the only boy among her 4 children.
She was thus not only the extraordinary string-puller ("ESP") but also extremely super-protective ("ESP") over her precious son, her only son, the son that she loved.
I did not mention that I had built up quite the bad reputation in Secondary School, to the extent that the outgoing Sec 1 form teacher would warn the incoming Sec 2 form teacher about me, and so on. My mom had on several occasions been called up to see my form teacher (this was way before the current practice of parents meeting teachers, back then they only did so for disciplinary conduct cases).
A glance at my Report Card bears this out.
In Sec 1, Choo Teck Song gave me a Fair (which is a euphemism for "Bad") Conduct.
In Sec 2, Toh Chin Chong, put "F. Good", which was his way of further toning it down.
In Sec 3, to N Pillay's credit, she gave me a "Good" conduct throughout, although she was the one who requested my mom to see her the most often.
And in Sec 4, James Tan actually wrote and cancelled "Fair" and also put "F. Good".
Yet in Mom's eyes, I was the innocent, defenceless, misunderstood child who could do no wrong, and had to be protected at all costs.
Being the sheltered kid who lived in landed property all his life, I was extremely underweight as a teen, and could hardly do a single chin-up. Needless to say, I was ill-prepared for the Army and found BMT life tortuous. I contemplated suicide and it was the driving license that God miraculously used to preserve my life. You can read that testimony of mine here.
I passed my driving at the 4th attempt
Here is the teaser I posted yesterday.
1986: Noel hampers, BMT, peanut butter, coin-a-phone, recorded Smurfs
1987: Girl asked if I had to choose between mom and her / accuses me of hiding under mom's skirt
1988: Mom told off my room mate!!!
1989/1990: Mom made phone calls to Mr Ling Sing Wong, the then-Registrar of the then-NTI
1991: Mom asked Dad to add an extra room so that I could continue to stay with them after getting married
1994-1997: Mom gave me her car to use in SICC and to attend MBA classes
Jan - Feb 1986:
Prior to enlisting in the Army, and just after sitting for my A levels, I had a couple of months of free time. Gerald Ang, my JC classmate, introduced me to a temporary job at Noel Hampers, for which we were each paid $350 a month.
I was employed as a "Runner" and my job was to get those who ordered hampers to physically sign the order form. This was back in the days of landlines and facsimile machines. So every day, I would take a bus to the orderer's office, get the form signed, take a bus back and pass the signed form to the boss. I had to keep the bus tickets as proof, and claimed reimbursement for transport once the accumulated amount reached $10.
2 weeks into the job, the boss asked me whether I was keen to pack hampers as it was leading up to CNY. I declined because there was a time limit for each hamper. Then she asked if I was keen to deliver hampers and would be paid $1 for every successful delivery. That I accepted. And thus I spent a week or so delivering hampers.
Noel had a lorry driver and he got paid $1 extra too. But I ended up being the one carrying the hampers to the customer's office or doorstep, because the driver had to wait in the truck to avoid getting fined.
There was one particular evening when we delivered hampers late into the night. Back then, there were no handphones and pagers. My mom was worried as to why I was not home yet, so guess what she did? She garnered whatever resources she had (probably the thick telephone directory of yore) and called Noel Hampers to tell off whoever picked up the phone as to why a part-timer had to work overtime.
Turns out the one who answered the call was the supervisor of those doing the nightshift packing hampers, because that colleague told me what happened the next day.
To cut a long story short, that was the end of my stint at Noel. Mom saw to it :P
Mar- Jun 1986:
On 16 March 1986 (a day after Hotel New World collapsed), I became known as REC Loh Cheng Tuan. Every book-in day, my mom would send me all the way to Changi for me to catch the RPL to Tekong. On book-out day, she would be waiting patiently to pick me up and take me home.
On one particular book-in day while sending me to Changi, she asked me what I missed eating the most while in BMT. I told her "peanut butter". That very book-out weekend, when I got home, there was this huge bottle of peanut butter sitting on the dining table. I am crying while typing this because that gesture is a reflection of what the love of a mother is all about.
While in BMT, on particular nights when there was no night training, we were given a maximum of 9 minutes to use the coin-a-phone to call our loved ones. While many platoon mates would call their girlfriend, I being single then, would call my mom to talk about anything and everything.
Which brings me to the topic of the Smurfs!!!
She would faithfully timer-record the Smurfs, which aired every Sunday morning. After church, she would watch the recorded episodes and set aside the video tape for me so that I could also watch those episodes when I booked out!
Interesting enough, the Smurfs plays a significant role (either directly or indirectly) in all the 3 women in my life, so I shall digress slightly and blog about them tomorrow, so stay tuned!
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