Author: Paul Syng

Rested my laptop, walked out of Starbucks on the corner of Fifth Ave & 49th Street and to my shock/surprise, in the middle of the chaos that is Manhattan -at 6pm- a hot girl (possible part-time model) jumps out of an Uber cab and bolts for the next one.

Seconds later, as the camera pans back to the street, out comes a brownish guy, from the same vehicle. He’s chasing that girl. From the looks of it, his body language tied to a foul mouth, you’d assume they’re fighting over his tiny penis.

Don’t ask me how the tiny penis got into all this. Stay with me, it gets better. I’m back onto my iPhone 5s (Gold) and searching for the closest Fedex Office, as I need to send a pair of shoes to a close friend back home.

Alright, I don’t know how but somehow the generic street noise numbs and I begin to hear the couple yelling foul and, my curious bitch instincts act up, strategically placing me yards away from the aforesaid relationship debacle.

I’m enjoying the yelling and public scene. It’s net neutrality free drama. Here’s where the conversation takes a whole new dimension.

The guy yells out, “I know about your back page listing BITCH!!!”.

*Gulp. A shiver runs down my rectum.

For those who’re naive and innocent unless proven in court, Backpage is where men go to find whores. Most of these girls are foreigners trying to make it into NYC by soliciting their genitals for rent money. Or in other words, these are your conventional strippers/prostitutes gone tech savvy. They are currently developing an app for the Apple watch- abled to send vibrations directly to your cock (fuck the cute hearts).

I can only imagine. Wait. Actually. I can’t imagine what’s going on in this guy’s head on finding the love of his life (who probably slept with him once- minus the head or anal) is fucking Manhattan for cash.

*Here’s a billion dollar idea. Feel free to develop it and send me equity. Paypal/Uber for whores. Fuck you if it exists.

Here’s the thing. NYC is a bit crazy like that. Men and women are casually dating 3-4 people at a time. Imagine the STDs going around. Phew! Phew!

I’m not taking sides here but that dude got fucked over. The moral of the story. If you think you’re getting serious over a chick, search for the brunette with a dimple on her lower abdomen on Backpage.

By the way, shipping a pair of shoes through Fedex is three times the cost of the merchandise. Fuck, right?

With nothing on the cards for a sunny Sunday afternoon, my mother announced a trip to the local mall. I was in the 3rd grade that year. A few Nintendo games aside, a toboggan [a long, light, narrow vehicle, typically on runners, used for sliding downhill over snow or ice] sitting beneath boxes of unused stuff in the attic, there wasn’t much I had on my to-do list.

*At the time, the internet was in its nascent stages. Selfie, Facebook, Twitter and “social-media” didn’t exist. Neither did girls gone wild.

Within minutes, my mom had my sister and me in the backseat. Window-shopping, eating a Double Big Mac at McDonald’s, or the skin-covered chicken at Swiss Chalet and loitering between toy and sports aisles made for an adventurous evening with my sister and mother.

Post Sears, Wal-Mart and Loblaws, we’d head to Toy’r’us on pleading and begging [which my mom would try and avoid knowing I’d create a scene and embarrass her for not letting me have either Batman figurines or Nintendo games].

For your information, in class one, I had stolen my classmate’s pencil and, on my mother’s knowledge of such behaviour, received a massive thrashing. Earlier that evening, I had turned blue on interrogation and come short of an alibi.

*Quick tip if you’re going to attempt and lie through your teeth- mother’s parental instincts can look into the depths of your soul. Tread carefully if you may.

I felt guilty and ashamed that night, as if it was the end of me. The next day, I returned the stolen pencil, promising myself never ever to steal or lie again.

But today [the 5th grade], a few years after the rare pencil incident, I was at the mall, forgotten of any such behaviour, standing eye-to-eye with a pack of baseball cards. I wanted them so badly [in my defence, all the kids at school were showing off their collection, and I badly needed to feel “in” or cool or accepted, I guess].

I had wiped the slate clean only to have it re-written this day. I inched closer toward the rack, eliminating any distance between my chest and the set of cards. I pulled a few packs down in each hand and made a B-line for the bathroom. I hadn’t thought this through as I wasn’t a thief or a professional shoplifter.

I closed the bathroom booth door behind me. As I sat there, with my pants down, staring back at the pack of cards, a trickle of sweat ran down my back.

This was it—the moment of truth. I was going to shoplift these packs of cards. My brain began to work in overdrive, shelling thoughts of getting caught or walking away from the whole episode scot-free.

I made up my mind. On quickly unwrapping all the packs, I disposed of the covers in the bin and shoved a fistful of cards down my underwear. Pulling my pants back on, I could feel the stiff cards poking up against my crotch.

No pain, no gain, right?

With all the courage left, I walked out of the booth and then to the bathroom. I could feel the sweat on my palms and an accelerated heartbeat in my chest.

By now, some sweat off my crotch had rubbed up against the cards, making them soggy. I suppose a few cards would be sacrificed, but I didn’t let that worry me then.

On strolling around for a bit, I fixed my stride and found my mother between an aisle for cushion covers and sheers. I made my move and began walking toward her, thinking I had successfully gotten away with shoplifting baseball cards.

Only a few strides later, two elderly men in their mid-thirties cut me off by the perfume section. I looked up in utter dismay and shock. Fuck. I was caught. Now what? They told me they had been watching me from CCTV cameras. They requested my parents, and upon seeing unidentified men crossing paths with her son, my mother walked over and listened to the entire episode patiently.

Disappointed by her son’s stupidity, my mom began to apologize and begged the undercover mall security personnel to forgive me. She reiterated this was my first time.

*We all know how true that was.

As I watched the sequence of events unfold in dismay, I slowly pulled out the baseball cards from my underwear and handed them over to one of the men without ever raising my head once.

One of the men, closer to me, got down on a knee while the other continued to talk to my mom and, with one hand around my elbow, told me of the consequences and the fact that I was in so much trouble. But he would let me off this once because he could see that I had been humiliated and shattered forever.

Once the men were gone, my mom looked at me in a way I had never experienced before. It’s a look that I will never forget. It was of momentary-lost-faith, forgiveness, and paternal-instincts factor [unable to describe exact emotions].

That evening, we had McDonald’s for dinner; the incident has never been brought up in the last 25 years.

First thing first. Yes, I’ve smoked cigarettes. Benson Lights. India Kings. Classic Milds. Gudang Garam. Marlboro Lights. I wasn’t exactly loyal to any one brand or the taste [as compulsive and habitual smokers would have amateurs believe].

Labelled -to my convenience- a social smoker, I would light one after having a couple of drinks (at a party) or at work during “creative brainstorming” sessions, held between floor 16 and 17 -out on the stairs- at the agency.

This, ability to smoke at will, gave me the reassuring feeling of being in control of my sick habit, leaving little room for feelings of addiction creeping up my throat.

It’s safe to assume that almost anyone in advertising, smokes. A sweeping generalised statement would have been “everyone in advertising smokes” but that’s clearly not the case.

Don’t believe me? Go watch an episode of Mad Men. Captured between dialogues is the foreplay of cigarettes. A smoking protagonist is so much better in dialogue delivery than a non-smoker. I bet the director agrees with my angle on the matter.

Look, all I’m saying is that people smoke. You can like it or hate it but it’s happening right now, as we speak- someone out there, working in the creative department of an advertising agency- put a lighter to a cigarette and inhaled every bit of the cancer-inducing smoke.

That said, I’ve come clean now. *Takes a deep breadth. That habit is well behind me, like bell-bottoms or a head full of hair. I’ve been shaving my head for a decade now. You do the maths. It’s my way of combing with stress [pun intended]. *Exhales.

Curious to understand how ideas and smoking work together, I chartered upon a search for answers. That said, non-smokers are also idea-capable people. Sure, they get ideas [which are not as good as the ideas people have who smoke or drink] but, hey, where credit is due, we must oblige.

Hell, I believe geniuses of tremendous creative potential such as Edisson, Picasso, Bethoven, Einstein, Jobs, Ogilvy, Landor & Morisson were all possible smokers and drinkers. They’ve ruled and led the world over decades with world-changing-ideas.

Now, let’s examine this closely. The length and breadth of a cigarette is armoured with the single most powerful concept- a bridge between your inner and outer conscious.

Hear me out. On examining creative folk closely I stumbled upon this powerful idea. During the process of discovery [the constant failures/trials before the eureka] frustration levels climb on failing [before succeeding and changing the world] and can prove difficult leading to stress.

It is during these difficult times great minds would take a timeout by either smoking a cigarette or nursing a glass of hooch. During solitude, they’re not focused on the problem but shutting off. This bridging of their subconscious and conscious mind, unleashes the most powerful answers to problems that have riddled their minds forever.

Eckhart Tole suggests a similar concept. To be enlightened, one must switch off. To shut the process of thinking entirely. To harness the power of the mind. Smoking and drinking did just that for all the great thinkers of the world. It opened the doorway of possibilities and great potential.

For a moment, let’s set aside the common variables- lung cancer, heart problems, bad breadth and the “till-death-do-us-apart” brandished on every box. Draw a comparative of these with the remarkable gifts left behind because of them aiding great men and women.

By that token, I’m not championing ideas being born from smoking or drinking are better. Their noteworthy contribution is in no way palpable to the amount of damage they may have caused over the years. But at the same time, we cannot but ignore the fact that smoking or drinking have contributed, in some ironic way, to the betterment of this world.