Cloak and Dagger

All my life, I’ve been waiting for that one idea that’s going to make me a bazillion dollars and set me up for the lifestyle that I’ve only seen on ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ and ‘Shahs of Sunset’.

            Just before I went into university, I remember chatting with my Uncle Fred about what career I should take up. He said if I wanted an easy, uncomplicated life, I should do something where I just showed up at an office every day. Like a lawyer or a brain-surgeon.

            “There’s always going to be work. Sooner or later, everyone gets divorced, gets a pick-axe lodged in their head, or gets charged with murder,” he said, a comment that led my mother to complain to her sisters that there was something very dark and sinister about their brother.         

            “Alternatively,” he went on, sipping his coffee at the end of a very expensive meal at Tung Lok, “you could go into business for yourself, but that’s a bit more difficult. You need to find something that no one else has done. No point starting up another char kway teow stall, right?”

            Uncle Fred’s ideal business model was to make stuff that every single family must have at home. Like paper-clips, clothes hangers, matches and curtain rings. Years later, he added Post-Its and air-conditioners to the list. “It’s all cheap stuff, but you make the money on the volume. Imagine if you just sold one clothes hanger to every single person in China. Even if you sold it at five cents!”
            “I’d be buying you lunch,” I said.

            “I’ll say,” Uncle Fred told me.

            I never forgot those conversations. And over the years, I’ve brain-stormed any number of grand money-making ideas.

            A year or so ago, I thought of an app that told you if your enemy was within 20 metres of you. I knew it would make me a lot of money, but then someone got to it before me, and now, I’m sure the inventors of the ‘Cloak’ app are sitting on their private island giggling.

            I also had the idea of designer coffins, which no one else seems too keen on, though I’m not sure why. What’s more chic than a Louis Vuitton coffin? Or a Chanel number where the insides are quilted like their handbags? My biggest brainwave is a Hello Kitty coffin. I mean, that stupid cat is already on a toaster and it even has an entire plane devoted to it. A bright pink coffin with Kitty’s fat head emblazoned on the lid is a no brainer, if you ask me.

            “That’s the weirdest thing, I’ve ever heard of,” Amanda said when I first came up with the idea.

            I was completely unruffled. “That’s what they said about the iPhone’s touchscreen keypad,” I told her. “And, anyway, you’re one to talk. You just bought an exercise bike that you’ve used just once for two minutes!”

            “I’m busy!”

            “You’re using it as a door-stop!”

            So, the other day, I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw that a friend had posted an article about an underwear patch.

            I read the story in silence, every so often, unconsciously sucking in my breath. At the end of it, I said, “Huh! Now why didn’t I think of that?”

            At the other end of the sofa, Saffy looked up from her iPad. “What?”

            “Someone just invented a patch that you stick to your underwear and every time you fart, the patch releases a fresh minty smell that covers it all up.”

            Saffy put her iPad down on her lap and sat up. “What, completely?”

            “I guess so.”

            “It’s not going to be like a mint-scented fart is it?” Saffy wanted to know.

            I wrinkled my nose. “Oh my God, what would that smell like?”

            Saffy shrugged. “Colgate Durian, I imagine!” That idea tickled us so much we couldn’t stop laughing for the next five minutes.

            Later that evening, we were still giggling.

            “Seriously, can we not talk about it while we’re eating?” Amanda said, radiating disapproval like a troll on Amos Yee’s Facebook page.

            I told her that I was thinking of getting some of the patches. “I’ve been quite gaseous lately,” I explained. “It’s probably from all those lentil soups I’ve been eating for lunch.”

            “Luckily,” Saffy piped up, “I don’t need any. As you all know, my farts are only very lightly scented!”

            Amanda sighed. She put down her folk and spoon, and pushed her plate of dhal and rice away from her.

            “I wonder if the patches come in other scents,” Saffy wondered aloud.

            Amanda says she’s going to download the Cloak app and add Saffy to it.