The holiday season sure does bring the family together. I had the chance to spend some time in the kampung (pronounced as come-pong. English trans: village) with my grandma. I'm sure I'm not the first and only one to admit that her family's dysfunctional. Sometimes you wish that that person was part of the family because they're so special and unique that you want to share the same bloodline so that you can brag to your friends about how great your relative is. And sometimes you wish you weren't related to that hot guy so that you guys can date and make cute babies together. But thanks to a certain group of people, my holiday this time was anything but boring.

The Mad Beauty Queen
My mother's elder sister, whom we call Ngah, is without a doubt the prettiest among the lot. In her teens she modelled, entered many beauty contests and won the hearts of many men. She has the face that women pay thousands of dollars to achieve. A natural beauty and perhaps due to a genetic mix up contributed to her eurasian looks and sharp features. Even her freckles are perfectly placed. However, in her late teens (and at the prime of her life too), her heart was severely broken by a man. She not only lost her love but also lost her mind. Some believe that she was a victim of black magic done by another jealous man. But whatever it is, it still doesn't change the fact that she's c-r-a-z-y.

Over the years she would depend on pills(her supply of valium has really tempted me to take some if only she wasn't in the room the whole damn time) and she'd have regular visits to the doctors. Her mood swings are unpredictable as the weather. She always wants me to stay with her since she doesn't always get to see me. There was this one time where I was watching the TV in her room and I fell asleep. I was rudely awaken by a loud bang in the room. When I opened my eyes I saw Ngah with a really pissed off expression on her face and she was glaring at me. Maybe she was mad because I was sleeping in her bed but whatever it was, that was the last time I spent more than 5 minutes in her room. It's always a challenge to deal with her. When she takes her medication she's perfectly normal, able to carry decent conversations with people. It's when she doesn't that things can get real ugly. There are times when I want to snap her out of it but she might stab me with a fork in my sleep.

The Nagging Mafia Don
My grandmother is the don of this huge family as she's the eldest of 10 siblings. She's a tough and wise woman. I enjoyed being around her as I would just absorb whatever knowledge she had. Plus, it was fun 'pissing her off' with my usual antiques. But I suppose old age has caught up with her as she nags pretty much all the time and she tends to get upset a lot these days. If she wants something to be done, it has to be done then and there coz if you didn't, she'd be at it the whole day til the job gets done. As there isn't much to do in the kampung I tend to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It would be here that my grandma would impose her don-hood. Things had to be done her way. She'd insist on the onions to be pounded instead of using the blender (which is soooo much faster and easier). I can take it if she wants to go old-school with this whole cooking thing but you see, I'm the one who has to the hard work; the pounding, the grinding, the chopping. And after 3 hours of having your grandmother breathing down your neck on how to do the traditional rendang (a Malay delicacy), you pretty much don't care if it'll taste good as long as you can get the hell away from the kitchen... and her. But despite of it being hard to be around her, I would rather go through all that crap with her than not having her around.

Trigger-Happy Cowboy
Mus, my first cousin, is a walking, talking, breathing catastrophe. He's the dude guys only dream to be but are too piss scared to even try. He was just like any other mischiveous boy but he just spiralled out of control after his accident (where they had to remove a part of his skull to relieve the pressure). I guess the doctors must've removed restraint and consequences from his brain coz he sure as hell doesn't know what those mean.

Our relationship is certainly a strange one. We've always been close since we were young. Great minds think alike, I suppose (or more like troublemakers tend to think alike). We were never one of those kids who screamed and break vases at family gatherings. We'd run off quietly to plan our 'work' and execute it with so much class that we always got away with it. Well, most of the time. It's always fun hanging out with him because he's just the kind of guy that can give you such an adrenaline rush that you become addicted to him, always asking for more. However, there'll be times when he hardly says a word to me and there'll be times when I'm his bestfriend. I often find myself as his escape driver or babysitter. Women are definitely his biggest weakness. He once had an affair with a married woman who also had a very young child. He'd buy diapers, toys and food for the kid and shower the mother with all sorts of gifts. I even begged him to stop the affair as I was worried what would happen if her husband finds out. If it wasn't women, it'd be booze. Whenever we went clubbing, it was understood that I'd be the designated driver and he the designated drinker. And he's a terrible drunk. He once tried to sell me off to one of his friends for a jug of beer. A jug of beer!!!

Perhaps the reason I stick with him is because he's family or it's just my character to take care of messed up people (someone once told me that I have savior complex, you know, the need to save a lost soul or some shit like that).
For some unknown reasons he listens to me, well at least for the first 5 minutes.

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