It's not today that people wonder if I really ever sleep. When I was much younger, I used to think of sleep as a waste of precious time that you could be using for something important. Back then, "important" meant watching cartoons and playing video games, and it got me into trouble more than even taking meat from the pot.
My first gaming console came much later, so it all started with Silverbird TV (STV). Back then, STV was one of the very few channels that showed animation, and they had specific showing times. I mastered those times like lives depended on it. But my mother would always yell at me for paying attention to nothing else, especially my homework, when I return from school because I would be glued to the TV, watching animation.
STV changed the showing times for cartoons many times over the years, but I never lost guard. I even always knew the exact shows and the order they would happen, but never really if I had done my chores or even been responsible that day as a child under his mother's roof. And the main fight under that roof used to happen on Saturday mornings.
You see, Saturdays were when STV used to show a marathon of cartoon shows, usually from 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. until about 9 a.m., with each show lasting about 25 minutes and commercials, 5 minutes. And my mother—oh my Lord—always asked a particular question at some point if necessary...
"What have you done for me in this house today?" My mother would often say when she feels you have been lazy all morning and now want to eat her food. She would have known that, rather than do our chores, my brother and I were probably overly distracted by cartoons. And, boy, did that never really end well. Little did she know that it became worse when we got our first gaming console.
Okay, it was our second. We forgot our PlayStation 1 at a faraway cousin's home and later got a PlayStation 2. It was that PS2 that added fuel to the fire. It became my Yang, and I became it's Yin.
I became so addicted to some of my video games on the PS2 that I barely ever slept. At a point, the headmaster of my school asked me if I was sick or anything because I was looking pale. I said, "I had never felt better in my entire life!"
I always spent hours and hours trying to complete levels. Some of my favourites were God Hand, Commando Strike Force, Bad Boys 2, and Ben 10, and they were mostly single-player. And for whatever reason, I usually came alive more at night. Between the hours midnight and 5 a.m. was when I usually entered my Avatar gaming state and would be able to complete the most challenging levels in any of the games, which was usually God Hand.
So you can imagine. A kid that spent his nighttime playing video games and daytime watching cartoons, what did you think he ever thought about? Surely, it wasn't chores. And I even had an internal clock that helped me time how long I should sleep for. I would say to myself, "Okay, I need to catch a little sleep. Body, take note, we rise again at precisely 5:25 a.m. to catch the first Captain Red Beard." And I would have just been powering down my game console at 5:07 a.m. In other words, I barely slept well.
The day of reckoning came, and my mother did the unthinkable. And guess whose fault it was? Yes, you got it right, my brother (
To me, Mama J & J was capping. Her grounding me was playing. I definitely knew where she hid the PS2. But you won't believe what she did one time. I was amazed.
She used to attend weekly vigils in church. This time, she didn't take us along with her. Oh, what manner of love God showed me to make her let us stay back that night. I just didn't think I would see my mother in her Avatar mother state that day.
As soon as she zoomed off with her white Mitsubishi, I came through like bangdadadang to free my beloved PS2 from her shackles. "Poor Veronica. Look what she did to you!" And then I plugged my baby in, and, next thing I knew, my mother's headlamps were shining through the gates at 5 a.m. "Oh, boy. We are dead, Veronica!" And I rushed to return my console to her shackles.
When Mama J & J returned, everything looked normal, but she had gone to receive extra spiritual powers that night. So she walked straight towards the TV as she stepped into the house, me peeping at her through a keyhole, and I saw this woman sniffing the TV. That morning, I knew I had just renewed my subscription for advanced punishment. There was no way that TV wouldn't be smelling like suya when I had just turned it off 5 minutes ago.
Video games and cartoons were one thing that got me into trouble as a kid. Probably the only thing. One time, it led me to hide my school report card as a kid, but that is another story for another day. The way she dealt with me, I even prayed the ground swallowed me up.
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