Reading Sparklette Veron’s post on our Childhood Memories, reminds me of an incident in my youth.

Remember those little Nintendo LCD games like Donkey Kong or Parachute? Well, i had a friend in Primary School called Ming Ming. He had one of those games. He was our favourite “rich-kid” in the class. He was the “have it all” and “know it all”. He was the first to have his own Computer at home (computers were expensive those days).

One day, i decided to borrow the Nintendo game home. Ming Ming is a good friend of mine and he trusted me. So i took it home with me. I was so elated! I could play the game till late at night (9pm) before i go to bed. I really loved the game and i wished my parents could have gotten me one.

In any case, i brought it back to school the next day. However, somehow, i lost the game. I can’t quite remember if it was confiscated by the teacher or dropped out of my school bag. In any case, Ming Ming was pretty angry at me. He wanted me to pay him back.

At first, i was very afraid and i didn’t want to tell my parents. I had no idea how to get the money. $100 in those days was no joke. I decided to just ask my Mum for $100 without mentioning the purpose of the loan.

My Mum was so shocked at my request that they demanded to know what the money was for. They asked if some bully was extorting money from me. I was so afraid and I cried… Eventually i told them the truth.

In a nutshell, i had to pay Ming Ming back in installments - half of my pocket money every day was given to Ming Ming. This went on for about a year before i managed to pay Ming Ming back the full amount. I had really meager recess breaks and i was hungry most of the time when i was in school.

This was a really harsh lesson on the consequences of our actions - especially the bad ones.

Note: This post is part of a series of recycled posts from my old Blog. They are primarily about my childhood and adolescence times. 11 Parts in all. Enjoy!