dollar kisses

mum once told me that nothing in life is free (i must have been gushing about some buy 1 free 1 deal? we were in the car, coming back from somewhere). the kid i was then, said "but mummy, love is free!" (i was quite the optimistic hippie). she explained how one still expects something from the person they love. i went on to argue how kisses cost nothing, and she told me how the price of a kiss was a kiss in return at the very least. i listed all the things a child could think of that cost nothing and wouldn't allow myself to be hampered by her pessimism, for surely life couldn't be that horrible!


i understand now what she tried to show me at that time.

everything has a price.


mind you, i was the kid that bawled when i got paid rm10 for a facial i did for an uncle, because i had expected to be paid rm10, 000, so it would be unfair to say that i was a peace loving, free love, free kisses hippie. i must admit, i spent a good deal of my childhood figuring out how to make money.

of late i've come to not care about it at all.
today i caught myself thinking, that i do not want to be a surgeon that rakes in millions. i want a job i enjoy doing (doctoring) along with weekends spent bumming on the beach.


i had to pay the visa lady a hefty fine for handing in my documents a little late.
actually, it was more of a daylight robbery, than a legal fine.
she said i couldn't bank in the money, she would do it for me -_______-
i tried to get her in a hole, saying i still needed a receipt and how i needed it in writing that she was taking the money for this purpose, but after a while, i just couldn't be arsed .
she was clearly hard pressed enough to have to lie/ try to get money in such a way.
she had a really bad hair do, maybe the dough was so that she could fix that (i hope).
she did spend a good fifteen minutes or so explaining to me how inefficient the legal system here was, and i wasn't guilty, and neither was she, but we were all victims in a system that needs to be revised yada yada yada.
i wish i could tell her (but i didn't have the words to) that it was ok. she didn't have to justify it. i also wished i could tell her to stop calling me 'milaya maya' (my cute girl?) because that wasn't softening the blow that i felt because i did want to buy a pair of oxford brogues and now i couldn't.


*sigh*

money for nothing and the chicks for free, is sadly just a catchy line from a song.
money makes the world go round.

and no one can really, really answer the question i've asked since i was a child: why can't we share it all around so that no one is really poor and the world can be that perfect place?

(because that's called communism and that system didn't really work out either).