"TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE!"

I was watching 'Hot Fuzz' at home the other night --- well, it was actually about half past midnight --- when I heard the sound of metal knocking against metal going "TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE!"

Unlike a typical character in a typical PMR English essay that I often teach to an atypical class of Form Three students, I did not "decide to walk over and have a closer look." It wasn't that I wasn't curious --- I was --- but I was simply too lazy to get up. And it wasn't because I was scared either. After all, what could possibly be scarier than being poor and having to collect plastic bottles and discarded card boxers to supplement my meagre income from PTPM? Nevertheless, the noisy racket continued --- TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! --- and yours truly was getting truly irritated. I mean, what the federation was going on? The movie was just becoming excitingly violent, what with Sergeant Angel getting ready to open a proverbial can of whup-ass on the bad guys.

"TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE!"

I paused the DVD, reluctantly got up from the comfortable sofa and went over to the window. I flipped open a pane and took a peek outside. It was the old lady who lives across from us, looking like she has just climbed out of a coffin. She could only see my two flaming eyeballs of course. She pointed half-heartedly at me, as if I've just said something really stupid to her. My mother told me that she became senile several months back, and her condition was becoming progressively worse.

"TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE! TONGUE!"

She was relentless. I couldn't take it. So I swung the door open, all wide-eyed and scary-looking, and demanded to know what on earth was going on in Cantonese.

"MEHHHHHHH SEEEEEEEEEE???????!!!"

"Soli...Janet ng high dough ahh...?" (Sorry, isn't Janet here?)

"Ng high ahhh..." Then I crumpled my face like a dried prune and gestured for her to, well, buzz off, like she was the most irritating fly in all of Tambun.

I waited for a complete minute before I resumed watching the movie, just to make sure that I didn't have to pause it again after I have un-paused it. Nothing. Just my growling stomach and the ceiling fan going FOOKFOOKFOOKFOOKFOOK. Peace at last, and so I continued watching till the end credits rolled.

When I saw my mother the next morning, I told her what happened.

"Ma, chum marn lay phang yau want lay ahh." (Mom, last night your friend was looking for you)
"Ha? Been gore?" (Huh, who?)
"Doy meen gore gore auntie law..." (That lady who lives opposite)
"High meh?" (Really?)
"High law. Koi want lay hui meeting ah." (She asked you to attend a meeting)
"Meh meeting?" (What meeting?)
"Meeting law." (The meeting)
"Mutt ye meeting?" (What meeting?)
"Tamoon Low Yarn Chee Ngoi Cheng Meeting." (The Alzheimer's Club of Tambun meeting)
"Choy gore lay ah!!! Dye cut lie see!!! Meet lay ge see futt ahh!!! (Meet your backside ah!!!)