Story of A Coconut

Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant. ~Saadi

Living in a house with a snappy alligator, an ever-active chimpanzee, a shrilling hyena and a over-patriotic canine who barks endlessly at strangers PASSING our doorsteps is tiring enough. Here’s another cutthroat who never seems to comprehend whatever you try to put across and acts like a broken recorder, repeating the same thing over and over and over again.

I brought my kids to a friend’s son’s birthday party. At the end of the day, my friend packed a cold coconut dessert for me to bring back for my husband. The coconut looked so innocent I didn’t suspect a storm to brew from it before long.

We headed towards my husband’s car which was waiting patiently in the carpark. I mean the car was patient, but not the driver.

To appease him, I decided to bring out the coconut. As expected, the glutton’s eyes sparkled almost immediately and felt utterly flattered to know that it’s meant especially for him.

“Here. This coconut is a special agar-agar dessert my friend’s relative has made. It is similar to what you can get from some shops.”

“What coconut?”

“You know, it’s something like a Thai delicacy.”

“What coconut?”

“You know, the coconut, instead of the water inside, you have the agar-agar.”

“What coconut?”

Silent.

“What coconut?”

Impatient tsk.

“What coconut?”

“Coconut lah! Inside got agar-agar!”

“What coconut?”

“Go home and see yourself lah!”

When we reached home, he promptly asked me where the coconut is.

I opened the plastic bag he had been carrying all the time and showed him the one and only thing which is round sitting right on top of the other containers staring at him.

“This is a coconut.”

Realization hit him almost instantly.

“Oh! This! I’ve eaten this before and I love it! Your friend bought it?”

“No. Her relative made it.”

“No, from the look of it, she bought it.”

“It was made.”

“Impossible! Taste like bought!”

“Made.”

“No way! Taste and look like bought!”

Silence.

“It’s bought!”

I turned my back against him.

“Really taste like bought. And from the way it’s wrapped, it’s bought!”

I could feel the heat rising within me.

“Definitely bought! Taste almost the same as the one I had eaten before!”

“I told you it was made! That person bought the coconut, made the agar-agar as good as the one you had eaten before, then use the same wrapping to seal it again! Don’t you get it?!?!?!”

“Really? Wow… It’s delicious.”

He slurped on the coconut dessert with a contented smile on his face while I stood mile away from him fuming.

There is however an ironic twist to this little episode.

When I carped about this annoying exchange to my friend the day after, she couldn’t stop laughing. Amidst the guffaws and tears, she said,

“The coconut was bought.”