The four packs of green colour wrapper tainted my front vision, as I struggled with my inner emotions. How was I going to explain myself and get off scott-free?
Finally, the police officer said, "Follow me," while I struggled to retrieve my things, and quietly followed him as he headed for the office.
The sight of people staring as though I was a victim of law and had just committed a heinous crime suddenly entered my peripheral vision, but I vaguely suspect it to be all part of my imaginative mind, my thoughts held prison by the fear, and the greater fear of the consequences.
As I sat down in the office, most of all, I realized I was not scared at all. But my heart was beating like crazy! My physical reaction was clearly not in sync with the emotional side within me.
The two police officers were now in front of me, presumably discussing my case. They were speaking in soft whispers that barely whip up enough vocal strength and merely caress the air around their pursued lips.
Finally, they beckoned me forward, and I stood up, ready to receive my sentence.
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It was a Saturday afternoon, and raining cats and dogs. Inside the car, my dad was grumbling with the same moody and bad temper as the weather that day.
Only the weather decided to present it by rumbling, thundering rain, and then summing up its argument with streaks of lightning, while my Dad was grumbling about how we should have just taken the bus, but no, we had to lust after convenience, which resulted in us getting stuck into a traffic jam in an 'Only Cars' lane heading into JB.
Which resulted in us waiting for the police officer's arrival, thus bringing us into the office, writing our particulars in a bounded book filled with names of people whose cars had to made a U-turn.
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We had little time to spend in JB, only a couple of hours since we arrived in the late afternoon and most of the shops start closing at 9.30pm.
When we finally reached immigration checkpoint, it was close to 11pm. For me, I brought along my Nightmare Before Christmas bag and came home with only my Nightmare Before Christmas bag. Meaning whatever I bought could fit into just that ONE bag.
Now, let's talk about what my Mum bought. Basically, the weight of whatever she bought entailed the assistance of roughly five large, heavy and bulky bags. Which in turn required the assistance of my very skinny hands, not to mention, frame.
No wonder it aroused the suspicion of the police officers! What was a fine, dandy, young, not to mention, super skinny girl doing with three very large bulky red plastic bags whose contents threatened to spill out and were calling out in protest by sticking their thorns into the edges of the bags.
When we entered the immigration checkpoint, my eyes flickered over to the signboard, that had a list of prohibited items. Was that chewing gum I saw? I was still pondering on whether chewing gum was one of the prohibited items listed, when I passed another of the similar board with the list of items again. Now, I saw very clearly, chewing gum with a 'X' right across it.
I casually told my sister that chewing gum was on the list of prohibited items. She panicked, but yet, I brushed off her concern with blatant disregard. Upon retrospective, I now realized that it was a prophecy for what would happen next.
So, at the check-in counter, I placed all my belongings, and when it came out from the other side, the police officer stopped me and said, "Open your bag, let me take a look inside it." And, so, I did.
The contents in my bag underwent a public scavenging, and the feelings of uneasiness in me were growing by the minute.
I watched helplessly as the police officer ruffled through the contents of my bag inside-out. He did a thorough check, until his hands finally closed around the incriminating evidence of me smuggling in prohibited items into Singapore.
The four packs of green colour wrapper tainted my front vision, as I struggled with my inner emotions. How was I going to explain myself and get off scott-free?
Finally, the police officer said, "Follow me," while I struggled to retrieve my things, and quietly followed him as he headed for the office.
The sight of people staring as though I was a victim of law and had just committed a heinous crime suddenly entered my peripheral vision, but I vaguely suspect it to be all part of my imaginative mind, my thoughts held prison by the fear, and the greater fear of the consequences.
As I sat down in the office, most of all, I realized I was not scared at all. But my heart was beating like crazy! My physical reaction was clearly not in sync with the emotional side within me.
The two police officers were now in front of me, presumably discussing my case. They were speaking in soft whispers that barely whip up enough vocal strength and merely caress the air around their pursued lips.
Finally, they beckoned me forward, and I stood up, ready to receive my sentence.
Between the constrained distance between the police officers and me, were a table, and on it spilled the incriminating evidence.
"You are not allowed to bring this into Singapore." the police officer said.
My eyes wavered over to the four chewing gum wrappers on the table, and nodded somberly.
Another officer spoke up. "We have to destroy this."
Destroy? Not confiscate, or throw it away, but destroy? Did it warrant such a strong, provocative choice of words? For a second, the scene of police officers surrounding a circle of fire, and conducting a ceremony to burn all those chewing gums collected over the weeks or months flashed through my mind.
So, I was recorded twice and for the record, on the book, my offence was written as:
"04 x Chewing Gum"
And, to think that, when my sis (tada! the real culprit revealed!) took those four packs of chewing gum, I asked her why she didn't buy more, and thrust one whole large pack into her arms. Later on, the price of that one large pack scared the pants out of us and we promptly replaced it back onto the shelf.
However, for the record, I was not the only one who tried smuggling chewing gum into Singapore. Behind me, a lady was also called into the office for the same reason, only different quantity. For her? A whole large pack of chewing gum, and god knows why she couldn't stop smiling at the police officers.
