I spent the night at the cafe, writing. I got home slightly past midnight and really craved a Ramly burger. Rather than drive, I decided I would walk out to the street-side stalls about 3 minutes from my place. Given the time of day, I thought it wise to empty my wallet of its cash and only brought 10 bucks with me.

Before I proceed on with the story, there is something you need to know about where we live. The people who live in our area, are generally quite well off. We got our house for a steal because the former owners took a real liking to us. So while we are not well to do, we live in an area that generally is.

Living across the street from where I live are those at the other end of the economic scale. Until quite recently, sprawled across the hillside close to our house, was a squatter community. They were evicted by a housing development company that had plans to build million dollar bungalows on the slope. The squatters have since been dispersed to the neighbouring area, Pantai Dalam. And some to the low cost residential dwellings across from us, low rise weather eaten flats with the leanest of amenities. The burger I craved was available in a broken down old shack at the base of these flats.

I’d be lying if I said I’ve never felt a little uncomfortable going to the stalls across the street. For one, I am almost always the only Chinese guy in a sea of Malay folk there. Secondly, I never seem to be able to dress down enough to fit in. I always try to dress plainly, not to avoid getting robbed, but to try my best not to incite any ill feeling from our contrasting circumstances. I liken it to the courtesy one shows to a starving person by not eating in front of him or her.

Tonight, I had my frayed jeans and my well worn khaki shirt on. I walked out to the store, and ordered my burger in as Melayu of an accent that my Chinese tongue could muscle. Unfortunately, I don’t think I even came close to hacking it with these guys because they speak a brand of Malay that you seldom even hear in the city. It’s the brand of Malay I hear my friend Vinod from Kampar speak.

I ordered a beef burger special, which is supposed to come with an egg. The guy tells me he is out of eggs… so I order a plain burger. But one of the burger guy’s helpers says has to get something from his flat, and brings down an egg for me.

I always love watching them prepare Ramly burgers. There’s a fixed technique that almost all Ramly burger sellers adhere to, to the point that I sometimes wonder if there is a Ramly burger training camp that teaches the craft. They crisp the patty on both sides, and then butterfly it with their spatula. Spreading the slit open, they spread the inside of the patty on the grill to get it crisp on the inside as well. They would then crack the egg on the hot grill and use the flat face of the spatula to spread it wide and thin. When the egg has vulcanised into a semi-solid state, they move the patty into the center of the egg wrap. They throw on a sprinkle of white pepper. Some Worcestershire sauce. Mayo. Chilli sauce.  Some magic brown sauce.  With the patty embalmed with their trademark condiments, they would then proceed to fold the egg around the beef patty. Wrapped like a mummy, they then transfer the patty onto a lightly toasted bun and dress it with grilled onions and more sauce.

As I tapped my feet waiting eagerly for my burger to be prepared, I noticed that almost everyone at the shack was in their flip flops, and I in my pair of Crocs. Worse still, I had a childish Friesian cow jibbitz fastened to the roof of my Crocs. I suddenly felt conscious and out of place again. I paid for the burger once it got into my possession, and hurried home.

I was really eager to sink my teeth into my delectable midnight snack. So when I got home I hurriedly undressed my burger, with the same urgency of a guy unzipping his pants in the loo after downing 12 beers. I took a bite and my eyes forced shut as the flavour lathered the insides of my mouth. In that moment, I felt a sudden oneness with the burger seller. I felt that the walls that once stood between us had crumbled to form the common ground on which we both stood. It was at that moment that I realised, that whilst we both spoke different tongues, we shared the exact same taste.

My mind slid into a day dream today, of the house I would own if I were to be ultra rich. The image that formed in my head was a little unexpected, and surprised me a little.

You see, one of the constant battles I fight in my current home is the lack of space. This was a problem I felt being ultra rich could solve, as I’d be able to afford a ginormous home with infinite storage space. A house so big it could be seen via Google Earth without you having to zoom in.

But taking a serious and honest look back, I realised that I’d always been dumbfounded by why celebrities wanted 20-bedroom homes. I always felt that mansions of such proportions lacked the warmth of a home and was void of a soul. So it was odd that my sub-conscious wanted a huge home with lots of space even though my heart had never desired such a thing.

The home of my dreams would be a cosy one. One that is compact and functional.  A single story, with 3 bedrooms, a living room that could sit… oh maybe eight.  Since I like to cook, my kitchen would be more lavish than most.

“But what about all my junk?” I asked myself.

And then it occurred to me. Rich people don’t keep junk.

It was at this precise moment that I discovered where all my space had gone. To the storage of all my pikey shit.

Rich people only keep clothes they like. Clothes that fit them. Clothes that are in the now, that they actually wear. Not boxes of jeans from 12 years ago that they had outgrown 13 years back. Rich people know that if they magically drop 5 pants sizes and can fit into their clothes from a decade ago, it is probably bad news. Probably a result of being whittled to the bone in a losing battle against cancer.

Rich people do not store away clothes that have gone out of fashion, and harbour the belief that those clothes would one day come back in style. There is a fashion formula the wealthy adhere to:

in vogue = in stores

And in their correct size.  Minus the mothball smell.

Rich people don’t purchase half a year’s worth of diapers if there is a diaper sale.  Or buy several cartons of milk powder to get the free bowl or mug. They do not buy toilet paper that come in crate-size bundles, where 5 packs of 12 are taped together. And they do not stockpile instant noodles and canned food as if war were coming to their doorstep the next day. Rich people only buy what they need for immediate consumption, and as a result, seldom find the need to look at expiration dates on packaging.  They need consumables to last at most for 4 days, not 40 moons.

Rich people don’t need tools. And if they do own tools, they have that one miracle tool that does the work of 25. They own the remote control that can work the TV, the AC, the gate, the sprinkler system. The fridge that can make pineapple-shaped ice cubes, bake muffins, brew coffee, and self clean.

And tools for DIY? That’s only if they want to do it themselves. Which they often don’t.

Rich people also don’t need any garden tools. No spades, no shovels, no rakes, no garden scissors. They hire gardeners who can afford a van full of garden grooming gadgets.

Rich people don’t keep a cupboard full of grocery bags under their sink, bags that they can later reuse as thrash bags. Instead they buy plastic bags that come in a neat pack of 50. Whenever they need a bag, they pull one out through the perforated hole on the top, just like you would a tissue out of a tissue box. These sit nicely in a drawer and takes up a tenth of the space.

Rich people don’t think twice about throwing away cardboard boxes used for packaging, and do not store them  like Russian Matryoshka dolls – where a small jewellery case sits within a shoe box, which sits within a microwave box inside a computer monitor box. They don’t even flatten out the boxes and slip them behind a cupboard or under their bed. And this may come as a shock to some of you but rich people also throw away bubble wrap. Yes, and also used wrapping paper.

Rich people don’t keep a garage full of baby stuff in case they decide to one day have another child. And they don’t keep old things that they insist they would one day get around to pawn off on eBay or at a second hand shop.

This may sound like an alien concept to some people out there, but rich people keep their spaces clear so they have room. Ya, I know. It sounds very zen.

“Room for what?” you may ask. Well room to walk. Room to breathe. Room for the sake of having room.

I was looking into my kitchen pantry the other day and noticed that I had a collection of tupperware, used mineral water bottles and fast food containers that would make any housewife turn green with envy. I had containers that could store anywhere from one mouthful of leftovers to a pot of stew that could feed the seven dwarfs and a pregnant Snow White. And get a hold of this. They are all microwaveable. I can already feel the envy alchemising into jealousy.

Rich people don’t keep leftovers when they eat at home. And they don’t bring home leftovers when they eat out. One may then ask if the microwave in their home is merely for show.  Well, rich people sometimes eat microwave dinners and microwave pop corn. Now and then, they also like to slum it out and reheat pizza from the day before.

So how do we solve this problem of space? Just have to be one of them rich people I guess. Because at the end of the day, it is not a question of ‘where all your space has gone’ but ‘what has gone into your space.’

A smaller house with more room. I like the sound of that.

My heart sank like a rock in water the last time I caught a glimpse of our bank account balance. Our savings had halved since we moved back to Malaysia. Most of it went towards getting set up I guess – house expenditure, our cars, child birth. Thankfully, I think we’ve moved past the heavy expenditure, but I still think we’ll have to tighten our belts a little, especially now that we’ve become a single income household.

I’ve spent the last couple of months engaged in quite a bit of DIY stuff – building shelves, a wine glass rack, refurbishing a clothes horse, building a small gate and other bits and bobs. Unfortunately, everything looks a bit crooked, so I’ve stashed away any desire to follow Jesus’ footsteps as a carpenter.

Have also spent quite a bit of time getting the garden and our finances in order, and that has been a huge relief. So it’s kinda nice that there has been progress on the home front, that life has not been stagnant.

With all those major annoyances out of the way, I think I’ll be able to work more routine into my day. The first half would be for domestic affairs – laundry, house cleaning, gardening. And the second half, my writing. In the last couple months, I’ve discovered that the unkempt state of our home hangs over my head throughout the day, and that it’s a bit hard for me to get into a Zen-like state till that stuff gets straigthened.

Every day since I quit my day job, I’ve wondered if I was doing the right thing. It still weighs heavily on me that I may not achieve what I’m setting out to accomplish. That I’m putting all my hopes and dreams into this one basket. And that it may get lost in a boundless ocean, amongst the million other baskets. Baskets that others have set afloat with their hopes and dreams inside.

I’ve also come to realise that the path I’m on is a lonely one. There is the physical loneliness of being indoors mostly these days, as well as the emotional loneliness of not running into many who can relate to what I’m currently going through. It really feels like a steep climb at the moment, but I’m quite certain this is a journey I have to take, so that I don’t look back and wonder… what if.