Here's the famous Aesop's fable, the Boy Who Cried Wolf:
A Shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, wanted some amusement during the long days he spent on the hillside guarding his sheep. So he decided to play a joke on his neighbours...
He shouted "Wolf! Wolf!" at the top of his voice, so he was heard in the village below.
The villagers dropped what they were doing and ran up the hill to help him, thinking that wolves were attacking their sheep. The boy laughed and thought this was a good trick.
The next day, the boy decided to see if he could get the villagers up the hill again. He cried "Wolf! Wolf!", and again, several villagers came out to see if he was in trouble.
On the Third day, the Wolf came.
The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure massacred the entire flock.
Taken from: http://www.aesopresources.com/fable/boywolf.php
An interesting fable, is it not? But's let take a closer analysis:-
What's really wrong about what the boy did? I mean, he's just a boy, a bit mischievous maybe, fooling around when he was bored. I think perhaps what's so bad is his recalcitrant lying - not stopping at once, even when he had the villagers fooled, but no, he had to do it again! And the poor villagers - amongst those who went up the hill on the second day, I'm sure there must have been some who thought, "Maybe he's lying again, but let's just believe in him once more."
Do you know what the moral of the fable is? It's not some gentle admonishment, "Don't cry wolf until it really comes." No, I'm afraid the moral is harsher, and clearer, than that - it's "There is no believing a liar, even when he is speaking the truth." Whoa - that's really harsh isn't it? Quite cynical - bitter, even.
But isn't that what the fable is about? Even though this short tale is titled "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", don't forget the other stars in this story - the villagers. The ones who believed in the boy again and again despite being lied to repeatedly. (in some other versions of this fable, the boy's crime is not repeated twice, but three or four times; see http://classics.mit.edu/Aesop/fab.1.1.html) The ones who end up kicking themselves for believing in him yet again.
If you were the boy, would you be angry at the end of the tale? Would you dare be angry at the villagers for not believing you? Would you blame them for not trusting in your word after you have lied to them time and time again? Would you dare be angry?
I know I wouldn't.
But supposing again, you are the boy, and you have indeed reformed. So you go around telling everyone that you'll never cry wolf again. How many do you think would believe you now? And even amongst those who wish to give you a second chance, don't you think there would be doubters? Especially, perhaps, the villagers who went up the hill many, many times before giving up on you.
So it seems pretty sad when you look at it like that, isn't it? You make a few mistakes and people don't trust you anymore, no matter how hard you try. And from this perspective, the moral of this fable no longer looks like a warning against believing liars, it begins to look more like a sad truth of life - there really is no believing (for) a liar, even when he is telling the truth. I mean, how would you know when's the truth and when's not?
So what can the poor boy do now? I don't know. Never lie ever again, I suppose. But ever again is a long long time, and unfortunately, that's exactly how long it's going to take.
I met Ad at Far East Plaza just now. We had quite a few errands to run; had to pick up his altered pants, had to terminate my gym membership and had to get our SCV set-top box replaced. Our SCV box suddenly decided to "explode" the other day. Poor Ad got quite a fright. Some sparks and a little bit of ashy material flew out of the box.
After getting the box replaced at the Customer Service Centre at Plaza Singapura, we headed to Thai Express for dinner. It was bad.
Ad ordered some claypot crayfish noodle thingy. 
See! Cheaterbugs! It's supposed to be in a claypot, but this don't look like clay to me!
I ordered a plate of fried noodles with vegetables. It's supposed to be a vegetarian dish. Cost me $8.90 (excluding tax) and all I got was this measly portion of noodles.
Worst of all, they ran out of the dessert I wanted. Boo. It was just such a bad dining experience.
The managers were giggling and laughing at me when they saw me enthusiastically snapping photos of the food. Poor misled sods.
Post-partum: after you part from your tum(my).
I popped over to my in-laws' place earlier to pick up a hair dryer that my mom-in-law kindly gave us. And coincidentally, there was this performance thingy going on... Radin Mas Community Day, I think - a bit like getai you know, where a stage and tentages are set up on the basketball court. Since my in-laws stay on the third floor in the block next to the basketball courts, we got a pretty good earful (and somewhat obstructed view) of the performance.
I ignored the performance for the most part as I didn't quite understand the hokkien songs and I was more interested in trying to wheedle Ad's grandmother into teaching me how to make kueh bangkit. She's a terror - but such a dear. So, anyway, the performance didn't really interest me until some woman started singing the Hot Stuff song - you know, the song that goes Lookin' for some hot stuff baby this evenin' I need some hot stuff baby tonight - and that really made me sit up and listen. Ad was next to me and he said, "That's the same person that was singing the hokkien songs earlier," and I was like WOW! She sounded pretty good - very different from the getai style which she was using to sing those hokkien songs earlier.
At this point, we looked out the window and from the silhouettes, we figured she was doing some kind of pole dance. So the bunch of us scurried downstairs but unfortunately, missed the Hot Stuff. What we saw, though, was this woman dressed in a sports cropped top and tight tights. Her next song was interesting - another hokkien one, and she was doing acrobatic bits on the pole that was set up in the middle of the stage - the "pole dance", I suppose.
But I was really impressed with her performance. Hey, this isn't some bar-top dancing chick we're talking about. This is some aunty, older than I am, abs pretty nicely defined (but I can't say the same for the rest of her body.. ahem), and although her pole dance veers more towards the acrobatic than the sensual, at least she can climb up the pole! Oh and her voice - man! Not common in a Chinese - an Asian powerhouse.
I think the Amazing Aunty is going to be my inspiration for my post-partum weight loss program.
I bought myself another pregnancy magazine again. I've been reading so much material on the subject - from the internet, from books, from magazines - that I think I know all I can possibly know about pregnancy and childbirth without experiencing it for myself.
But I continue to buy the magazines - I don't know why. Maybe I just like looking at the pictures of babies and other preggie mothers.
In my new issue of Pregnancy and Birth I found some pictures of a woman giving birth. Quite graphic, I must say - you actually see the baby coming out of you-know-where, and there are some close up shots of the newborn all alien-like. I showed these pictures to Ad, just to see how he would react.
Ad: Eeww.. So gross! [Referring to pictures of the baby with the waxy greenish-cream coloured coating called vernix - this cheesy substance covers and protects the baby's skin in the womb. Some babies are born with a lot of vernix.]
Me: So how, you can tahan [witnessing the birth] or not?
Ad: Can lah. This is angmoh baby, that's why looks so gross. Chinese baby won't look like that.
Me: Nonsense, all babies look like that.
Ad: Eee... looks like cabbage...
Me: *speechless*
Ad and I went on a hospital tour today - just to check out the facilities of the hospital and to try and decide if we wanted a single-bedded room or a two-bedded room.
We passed by the nursery and the sight of all the cute babies made me melt! They looked so sweet, so serene, all swaddled up and sleeping peacefully despite the bright lights in the room. There were some cots with blue cards (boys) and other cots with pink cards (girls). One sweet baby boy near the viewing window was fidgeting about, and I caught a glimpse of tiny fingers. Cute-ness!
All this time, our tour guide was rambling on and on about something, but I was so distracted I barely heard what she was saying. No, the overwhelming cute-ness of the babies wasn't the distraction. In my mind, I had only one thought -
You mean that's the size of a newborn? That big? And that is gonna come out of my ....
I went to the gynae today for my monthly checkup.
Here's the ultrasound scan!
I could see the baby's legs kicking away - the sweetest sight ever.
