Heyho… ok, when I said I was gonna blog everyday, I guess I lied :P.

            Last Thursday, the bunch of us were weaving spastically through the racks of Nicchi on the way out. Suddenly, the sight of a muscular Arnold Swarchenegger look alike lady caught my cocked eye.The first awfully discriminating impulse that bonked my mind was "Man or woman?", but I didn't acknowledge the aforesaid brain burp cuz, I mean huge women can be muscular too…

Apparently, I wasn't the only one with this gender analysis crisis and sure enough, Suenz started abusing my arm while hollering "Eh, eh, eh, Valerie!!!" into my cochlea. "That one girl or boy ah?" Having made up my sexist mind, I told her confidently, it was a woman, duh. But we were interrupted by an opinionated Sham saying, "No! It's a man la…" having being in these categories of intellectual discussions before, rather than stand around a dress store debating on the gender of some testosterone induced female or Klinefelter stranger, I tactfully suggested that Suen should subtly take a peek at Mrs. Man's face.

Before I knew it, I was dragged along by the aforesaid mad female on her odyssey of discovery. Being a queen of human behaviour, I just went to a rack opposite Mrs. Man and looked at the clothes there.

Meanwhile, the Suen Xin I had been wise enough to abandon was faring so much better than me. While two pairs of beady eyes turned towards her creeping majesty in horror, who apparently decided that the best way to identify a human secretly was to terrorise Mrs. Man into a coma. The cacated psychologist stalked right up to Mrs. Man with her head down and when she literally almost embedded her skull into Mrs. Man's erm, chest, she lifted her head up in her version of subtleness and STARED right into Mrs. Man's face. To emphasize her emotions, she whipped around and RAN to me, now with three pairs of eyes on her (two pairs still in horror, one probably murderous), and frantically beat my arm trying to get my already fully turned on attention. Edging away from her in a futile attempt to disassociate myself from this schizophrenic hysterical poultry, I tripped over a rack and succeeded in attracting more loving attention. At the same time, Suen had not yet given up trying to kill me and was still hitting me vigorously, this time hyperventilating while whispering "It's a man! It's a man1" at the top of her voice.

Wanting to salvage the situation before we were arrested for the disruption of peace and  discrimination of operated people, I tugged at her sleeve trying to drag her silently away without gaining more much-needed publicity. Too late.

The watching Sham aka the other pair of horrified eyes, amazed at what she perceived was a glorified success had snapped out of her vegetative state and bounced right up to us and was gesturing frantically while racing around the both of us, with me already attempting suicide from embarrassment and Suen still in her broken recorder mode of "It's a man! It's a man!". Before I could hiss "Sham! He's WATCHING us, MOVE!!!!" into her hyperactive face, she had started congratulating a fascinated Suen while yelling "Oh my God! You were SO obvious!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!! How COULD you??!?!? MAN OR WOMAN?!?!?" May I remind you, that they had gathered to conference at the place I stood, which was the rack OPPOSITE him? May I ALSO point out that I am short-sighted in one eye, and therefore stood at a rack almost right in front of him to see him better?

At this point of time, our reputation as citizens part of a society full of acceptance and mutual understanding and as individuals of high integrity and self-dignity were non-existent. Before he could study my features to identify me to the ISA, I turned and strode hurriedly off with my head down, leaving the two screeching maniacs behind. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and in two seconds I was caught up by a red-faced Suen Xin who shouted "Eh, VAL!!!" throughout the entire path she took. Thank you, thank you so much Suen, now the pretty man doesn't have to remember my face anymore, the whole department now knows my name. In fact, why don't you just advertise me to the entire mall? I don't think the security guards in the other end of the car park heard you. And she did just that. Seeing that I didn't hear her, which was mainly due to the fact I refused to acknowledge her presence and have anything to do with her, she opened her face cave and practically screamed "VAL!!!!!" (It's a good things she rarely calls me Valerie, probably too hard for her to pronounce), thus ensuring that every little deaf child in Madagascar knew my name.

            The other two, Shal and Becca came to us as they saw us leaving the store snorting and crying with mirth and naturally started interrogating us. My fruitless whispered yellings of "Let's get out first" were drowned by Sham's conspirational public-speaker voice of "Look at that person over there, now does it look like man or woman…" as we passed under the reproachful glare of a salesperson.

Oh, the salesperson is a man. He is wearing mascara, eye-shadow and lip-gloss. He has also has beautiful nails. Yup yup.

Inside every man is a woman, screaming to get out.