Wee Mischievous One

In normal circumstances, laptop and 'sambel goreng udang' rarely exist in the same sentence. A couple of months ago, I was harshly reminded that having a toddler roaming freely unchecked in one's living room comes under the heading of 'possible abnormal circumstances may occur'.

I should have been suspicious when things were too quiet. I was doing something in the bedroom while my better half was doing whatever she was doing in the bathroom. I knew something was amiss when there was no sound at all came from the living room where usually my riotous chatterbox of a daughter generate enough noise to compete with a medium-sized traditional market. She must have been doing something that is extremely fascinating. For her. And, from experience, whatever fascinates her carries a rather disastrous consequence for me.

I called out to the missus and asked her to check on the offspring. She did and seconds later with a slight tone of amusement she called back,"You better have a look at this!'. I rushed to the livingroom and there she was. Squatting on the dining table, my daughter was smearing the keyboard pad of my laptop with sambel goreng udang, which was meant to be our lunch. She grabbed a handful of the sambel and put it on the keyboard pad. Then, she slowly and meticulously spread the concoction like one would spread butter on a sandwich bread. In doing so, she wore the expression of someone in an intense state of concentration. It was as if the fate of humanity depended on whether she managed to cover every inch of my laptop with the oily concoction of chili and prawns. And I just stood there dumbfounded.

She has always been fascinated by that poor device. My fault, really. I often displayed her pictures or play her clips on the screen, just to see her reaction. Apparently, she grew fond of the poor thing. Once, I left the laptop unattended and the next thing I know she happily punching the keyboards at random. There went the editing that I had done for the past hour. Plus now when I left-click what showed up was the prompts normally saved for right-click. And numbers showed up instead of letters although I pressed the latter. I can't help but admiring her affinity for destruction.

She was about to decorate the screen when I finally came to. I called her and hold out my hands. She looked up and smiled proudly as if to say, hi Daddy, look what I can do with a bowl of sambel goreng udang!

Yeah, do that when you're ten and you're grounded till kingdom come, Missy...