Fat Lady with a Flea

Human Flea via Internet



Trap under the weight of pretences, I decide to be the girl that I have set myself out to be.

A quick tug form the upper corner and it rips, diagonally. One bare boob, a crooked arm and a bare thigh stare back. She has one good eye and that mass of golden curls tumble ridiculously.

I peel off the posters one by one. It gets easier. Really. After that I just sweep the desktop calendars onto the floor.

What the heck? I decide to reformat her hard disk instead of just getting furious reading her wedding planner. It feels liberating.

I’m thrill to be getting married. Right about now it feels like deranged bride meets outrageous mother-in-law with details of
a) how to turn the celebration into an over-the-top extravaganza that stars herself or
b) how to threaten the son not to marry me and maybe it’s
c) all the above and plus how to bake a saw into a wedding cake escape plan

Arrgh….

The rampage is nothing short of a detox for the son, my intended spouse. His mother aka Fat Lady molly coddles him to the point of keeping his teenage room and virginity intact. Marrying into that family is fine. Acceptable even. Aunts, cousins and all. Even the weird ones.

But not allowing him to remodel? Come on. The man-boy is already twenty nine. He and I do not need to sleep in a room with his guitars hanging from the ceiling or with posters of Farah Fawcett’s nipples staring back.

“If he has to stare at any nipples, they better belong to me!” I had shouted earlier in the week.  Demerit point check. Failed.  My own mother reeled back in horror when I told her what had happened with Fat Lady.

“No, no, no,” Mom shook her head. “You don’t confront your future M-I-L like that Dee Dee”. As if Mom knows. When she married Dad, she got him free of encumbrances sans his set of parents. Almost perfect life. No other woman to battle before the onset of honeymoon.

“Well, lucky you, Mom. I, on the other hand have to learn to get along with a woman who wants to marry her own son! And,” I pause for effect,” She looks like she will live a very long time too.”

Mom feels faints. Must be the heat of menopause.

Back to the room: The blue theme has to go. I’m handling the walls with a wicked fury. The curtains fall. The wallpapers scrap off.

The way to remodel is from the ceiling down. The guitars, he takes down lovingly. They’re to be donated to a youth group. Fine.

He’s sitting on the floor grinning. The yellowed posters strewn around him like crumpled confetti of Scrap Boutique during closing down sales. Fat Lady’s unhappy, grumpy and sullen. She’s furious. Murderous mad. If she has a gun, she would probably shoot first and ask questions later. I mean, I look like a homicidal bridezilla who threatens to kill her dreams.

Fat Lady told her son flatly, “She’s not Indian enough!”  How much of an Indian can I be when I’m Chinese? Sigh…

I have all intention of getting my wedding back on track.

Instead, Fat Lady and I, dance around each other like Muhammad Ali and his opponent, where I’ve learnt to move like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Sweet.

Fat Lady stands at the doorway dispensing bin liners form her secret stash. It seem to have come out of the crevices of her ample body.

I foresee our future relationship. She will be hell bent to make my life as miserable as possible.

I will be that witless girl who doesn’t know how to boil water. Even my cutting of chicken will fail her high standard of that equal six sided cube. Half inch by half inch.
I wonder what else I could do to annoy her.

“Dee Dee, you’re wearing sheer petticoat izzit? Simon can see your thighs against the light.” Fat Lady admonishes as she sashays into the room to tug at my mid riff tee shirt.

“Oh, Aunty I just love the way the sunlight shines through your hair. So flattering. Who’s your hair stylist?” I say sweetly.

Fat Lady glares and shoves pass Simon, who is clueless. A quick exist and heavy stomping followed by pots banging in the kitchen. I shudder at my foreseeable future. It seems noisy, but not the kind of noise I had intention of making with Simon.

Fast forward to closer to wedding i.e. the half year mark. Fat Lady and I are having a terrible time. Seriously. I am slowly reassembling our battered psyches. The bodies are fine. We have all survived. We’re not exactly in the best of shape. We haven’t grown closer in any way either.

She infuriates me and I annoy her no end. Both of us look to Simon who has kept up his pretence of being clueless in the presence of the two women he loves.

It is generally distressing, upsetting and possibly with premonition of impending exceedingly bad news. I am having a difficult time getting the hang of it. Much less the best of it or even most of it. Or any of it. Reduced to gibberish mutterings.

“Such rotten health,” Simon says. “We can’t simply plough through the wedding with Mama like this.”

I agree. Rotten luck it seems.

Fat Lady has no decency to be embarrassed. To lie so blatantly about something so trivial is unbelievable. It seems that she is adamant and downright determined on not admitting me into her house hold.

That’s that sickeningly sentimental, intellectually vacant stare that greets me every time I try to speak with Fat Lady. It was almost a week later that I found out that what she has been dishing out earlier is called. A Passive Aggressive mechanism is in place.

Fat Lady has chosen to lie under the guise of pleasing everyone. I know she still wants her way but she wants everyone to like her, think her saintly. Suffering quietly and giving in to demanding bridezilla girl.

Everytime, we would want to do something, we would ask her.

Simon: Do you want to come along Mama?

Fat Lady: Oh...no, you run along. I’ll be FINE...well okay, I guess if I REMEMBER to take my meds on time and try not to EXERT myself.

Simon: Mom, do you want me to stay? Is that what you're trying to get at?

Fat Lady: Huh? Oh no, you go along and have a nice time if YOU want. I’m FINE. Don’t worry about anything. I have my biscuit and there’s warm water in the flask. I can make a hot drink and have a light dinner. You RUN along and have that WAGYU steak that she likes. I’ll be FINE, I guess.

Simon: Fine, we'll stay, are you happy now Mama?

Fat Lady: Err, umps if you INSIST.

So life goes on. Simon and I revert back to a dating relationship. How to even plan for a wedding when Fat Lady will start having episodes whenever she feels neglected.

One afternoon I took a long walk.

I know that I frequently challenge myself. I am seriously concern to some extent of finding a worthy opponent. I endeavour to continually examine and re-examine my personality, temperament, my life’s purpose. Reflex and responses whether they be my own wrapped ideas or theories of considerable prejudices. I am getting confused.

I look at Fat Lady. Simon looks at me. There can be no good solution to this.

So, would it have worked out if we had married then? Who knows? I don't.

And seriously the more I look at it, the more apparent it has become. Why would I want to put a flea on my head so that I could scratch? What fun is that?


There’s a Hokkien saying, translated which goes like this. After a meal, you’re so free, you’ll take a flea and put in on your head to scratch.

Doris Lim is a popular freelance writer who blogs as Little Fish on travel and food stories here. Be sure to check out her other inspiring stories and follow her Instagram @SmartDoryID & Facebook to check out more places to eat delicious street foods or dine in the best restaurants!