Pocket Money

The ritual of daily pocket money

When my father dropped me at school, he gave me ten cents. I could buy whatever I wanted during the school break with that money. As I got off his bicycle in the morning, in front of the school, the ritual of waiting for him to open his wallet was an epic moment in my early life. Something I looked forward to every school day.

I bought a milky he ten cents from the school’s tuck shop. Every boy jostled to get their popsicle. They sat on the ground, cherishing and enjoying the cold treats with each bite, licking and sucking every drop of the vanilla or strawberry-flavoured popsicles.

Occasionally, I chose to buy a fruit mix from the vendors outside the school gate. The pickle mixes were made of tropical fruits, mangoes, and pineapple, made to a crunchy spicy taste with chillies and salt, full of mouth-twisting zing. An alternative mix was the wood apple sambal made from wood apple pulp, also with chillies and salt.

Every Wednesday, there was a bonus. Twenty-five cents, more than double the daily pocket money, but only once a week. It was the moment to look forward to the granddaddy of all pocket monies, the twenty-cent coin. I loved mid-week, the arrival of Wednesday when my father opened his wallet and when that shiny silver twenty-five cents coin passed from his hand to mine.

On Wednesdays, my bonus day, I indulged. The twenty-five cents were to be spent in whole. I bought the most expensive ice cream available at the tuck shop. It was an icy choc, the craved item for any boy. A milky vanilla-flavoured ice cream coated with chocolates and wrapped in shiny silver paper. It oozed with a creamy taste, every boy’s dream of a mid-day snack. The icy choc was so coveted that I saved the used silver paper, hiding it among the pages in my schoolbooks.

No icy choc has tasted so good since then.

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