Eavesdropping Taught Me A Lesson
Posted: Wednesday, February 01, 2012
by Hilda Cang
One day, my mother said to me " Mei Mei, my mah-jong friend, Aunty Lucy's son had finished studies in England and back to Malaysia. He now is an engineer with the water department. " " So ? " I didn't bother to lift my head while writing my school assignment. I was 15 going on 16. She went on " I remembered when you were a baby, about 6 months old, Jiff was also a baby, about 8 months old. Aunty Lucy and I had jokingly matched the two of you to be girlfriend boyfriend when you grew up and Jiff is Aunty Lucy's one and only son." " So ? " I was terribly sleepy by then after a whole hectic morning in school and had brought back a handful of tiresome difficult homework to be passed up the next morning and my mother's rambling sounded irritating and boring and, sincerely and truly, I wasn't sure what she was up to or trying to imply to me at the wrong time.
Following that week, the heater in my room was not working properly and the water pressure in the kitchen was slow and worst of all, there wasn't any drop of water in the day that made cooking and washing a big problem for my mother. By right, a call to the plumber would definitely solve the problem I thought but I was too naive and busy to involve in such handy manny things.
I happened to overhear my parents talking in the corridor where my old folks used to sit there after meal.
" I can ask him to come over. Water department is lucky to have him work for them ." my mother said .
" How........" came my father's voice.
" Don't worry. I will personally ask him. Everything can be arranged. Tomorrow 2 o'clock will be best and make sure Mei Mei is at home. " my mother said.
Eversince my mother mentioned that guy named Jiff and the water department, I had become sensitive and cautious. Don't tell me they were talking about aunty Lucy's son coming over to meet me ? When you were 15, your sense of thinking tends to bring you uncertainty about things beyond your imagination and always in the opposite way.
So, the next day after school at 1.30pm, I didn't want to go home to meet someone I hardly knew at 2pm. I spent the time in my classmate's house untill 4pm. By the time I got home, I saw my mother's worried face but otherwise, it was calm and peace. She didn't scold me. She just said everything was okay with the water and the heater after they contacted an experienced person from the water department whom the authority had assigned to service but he came with 2 foreign workers of other race. The reason my mother wanted me to be around was to keep watch over them while they were in my room repairing the heater. Past experience was the last time we asked some workers to repair something in my brother's room, some valuable items were lost and stolen.
I was so embarrassed for my silliness and trying to be clever, I only made a fool of myself. Eavesdropping creates suspicion and misunderstanding. Walls got ears is no longer applicable if you got yourself into your false assumption.
From then on, I quit eavesdropping and I found myself as light as a feather !
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)It's amazing how good our imaginations are at filling in the gaps sometimes!hahaha....you are humorous, Jennifer. Imagination is what we need here.lol.
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