Back in the old days

How's this for irony?

We have a mosquito problem where I live. We don't know where the buggers are coming from and the whole of last year, my Mom made a ruckus to anyone in authority who would listen. Sometimes things would be cool and we'd be pest free. Then some days (and nights) it would be so bad I'd have to flit the house with bug spray up to 4 times a day. On those horrible days, the mozzie bite marks on my legs would take days to fade.

Here's the ironic part. We've used everything from patches to sprays to special candle and air freshners. Now, after all this, we're back to using mosquito coils.

Why is it ironic? Because when I was a wee child, staying at my PorPor's house in the Kolam Ayer kampung, we'd had a fresh coil every night. The smell of it reminds me of very early childhood days, so long ago that the old house used to have a bucket system for the toilet. Oh yeah, THAT long ago.

Now I'm all grown up with a bathroom that, a friend once mentioned, looked like a hotel bathroom, but we're still on mozzie coils. But it's funny how a smell can evoke memories, eh?


Those were the days!