Not Seeing The Point About The Pointies

I live in a condominium that has a pool and playground downstairs. It’s pretty communal. All the kids know one another, partially because well over half of them go to the same primary school down the road.

We also have a bunch of security guards — rent-a-cops essentially. I’m not exactly sure why the HOA keeps them around given Singapore’s nonexistent crime rate. Still, they enforce the rules in our condo.

For better or for worse, my family is very familiar and friendly with the guards. This is half because we’ve been living there for fifteen years and counting, and half because my younger brother is the biggest troublemaker on the block. He got skateboarding banned after he nearly ran over a three-year-old, and was responsible for — or at least involved in — a considerable amount of the mischief and bad behaviour the local boys got up to.

As such, it’s not the first time that the security guards have come knocking.

Me: “Hi, [Guard]. What’s the problem?”

Guard: “I’ve got complaints from two mothers downstairs about your brother flashing a butterfly knife and threatening their kids with it.”

Me: *Long sigh* “Seriously?”

Guard: “We take a very serious stance about weapons on the premises. I’m afraid that we might have to get the police involved. Knives like that should be illegal in Singapore, I believe.”

Me: “It’s a toy. He watched some movie or another and got really obsessed with getting a butterfly knife toy of his own. I don’t know why our parents agreed to get him one.”

Guard: “A toy? Can I see it?”

I dig it up and pass it to him.

Guard: *Examining it* “The things they make these days.” *Passes it back* “The blade is metal and rather sharp. I’m afraid, toy or not, I’m going to have to ban it from downstairs.”

Me: “No problem. I’ll relay this to my parents. Sorry again for the trouble.”

As promised, I tell my parents.

Dad: *In a confrontational tone* “Who are those parents? They obviously are overreacting. It’s a toy.”

Me: “Toy or no, it looks real, and that scares people.”

Dad: *Dismissively* “People are all so scared these days. It’s not a big deal.”

I could tell by his tone that he’d tuned me out and I wouldn’t be winning that argument. Instead, I got Mom to get a certain wonderfully weird idea into Dad’s thick skull; maybe, just maybe, mothers don’t like having sharp metal objects pointed at their very young children.

He conceded and agreed to drop the issue, but I still heard him grumbling about “wimpy parents being overprotective” and “teaching their kids to be sissies” quite frequently.