Sandy Ko, a Singapore Girl, stunningly beautiful, well travelled, graceful and charming. Sigh! That is where the similarities with the image of the perfect air stewardess ends. Instead, Sandy is tough; black belt in karate tough and CEO of Tembusu F...
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Tommy's four-room HDB apartment was tidy, spotless and calming. He had cane furniture with cushion seats and a retro egg chair with a luminous green fibreglass shell that was now back in vogue. There was a bronze fan that kept the room cool and a faint smell of vinegar. It was like we had travelled back into the time of Austin Powers except for the plants, creepers and flowers growing everywhere.
Tommy ushered me into the egg chair and was busy in the kitchen making me a cup of Oolong tea. The same restfulness I felt in the hospital came flowing back, I knew I shouldn't get too comfortable so I stood up quickly and walked out to the balcony admiring the view of rows of windows in the next apartment. In each window was life--stories of people living one on top of another.
"So what's it like working in the furniture business?" asked Tommy handing me a plate of snacks. "I made cookies and custard egg tarts myself."
"Hmm...yum," I said taking a small nibble. "Well, in TUF, low voices dominate, hairy chests peek from open collars, and soccer wins affect work morale."
"Haha... your office is the opposite of my home. Constantly squealing, bras dangling from every available hook and romance novels on every shelf."
"My doctor put the differences between two genders succinctly, testosterone operates on a daily cycle which peaks at nine in the morning and again in the evening, while the estrogen cycle operates on a twenty-eight day cycle."
"Oh interesting fact to add to my truth is stranger than fiction collection," said Tommy handing me a cup of tea.
"Oh thanks, hmm..Oolong. He even advised us to time our important conversations with our all male staff for nine in the morning and at night. Was it hard growing up in an all-girl household?"
"As children it was great fun, sometimes we would all just pile in one bed with mum. Mum would read to us while we listened and slept. Adolescence was much harder. Once a month I left home and stayed with my buddies because at home for four days, there could be only one survivor. There were fights to the death matches between the female assassins at home. It was gruesome and my emotional scars run deep. It is worse than swimming in a swamp of mutant radioactive crocodiles," said Tommy with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Haha gross exaggeration...it can't be as bad as working in an almost all male furniture business. At every function, trade fair and conference, I seem to be the only female apart from the secretaries. Things just get strained especially during after work socials. You know the drinking scene, after a few beers and some hard liquor they start getting fresh with the waitresses. Of course, things really go downhill when normally professional colleagues turn their drunken leering gaze towards me. Good thing I know karate."
"You know karate but you're scared of spiders?" Tommy stared at me in disbelief.
"That's 'cos of childhood trauma, caused when Logan went through a phase of planting these realistic plastic spiders in unexpected places. Once I was eating porridge, he threw one and it landed beside me and frightened me away like Miss Muffet. He apologised by buying me my first Sir Gawain book but think that's when I developed arachnophobia".
